skating and you knees

[larryoracing]

Update.

I thought I would give an update to my own injuries or past injuries, which the website has noted, I probably have aggravated an old injury.

For financial reasons I have decided not to skate this month. But the funny thing about it, just before Christmas I went back home to Monterey, Ca and I was not skating. In the few days of not skating, I almost could not walk.

In fact, when I tried to move up and down a mountain side climbing up and down the cliffs of the ocean side/beaches of the mountain, I found I had much pain in my knee area/muscles around my knees, where I could not bend them.

I decided to see if I could do a squat/knee bend like “shooting the duck”. Nope I could not do one. Never could since I came back skating 6 months ago. I could dance (artistic) jump and spin, but not sit spins and I could not shoot the duck.

Well, about 5 days ago, I could not do one shoot the duck squat off skates. 4 days later I’m up to 20. It amazes me how much I have improved, and the muscle around my old injury/torn ligament is getting stronger. I think if I keep this up for another 2-3 weeks. I might get up to 40 squats/shoot the ducks positions and be a lot stronger skater and be able to jump and spin a lot better when I return to skating.

The injury is over 40 years old, but I never did any vigorous exercises on it. Skating is vigorous and jumping and spins is worse, but the Artistic Dance, never tested the ligament around the left knee.

Some one said, I just needed to let it heal. Not skating for a month is doing me good. I don't know how long it will last when I get back to skating, but I skated vigorously on it for 6 months until the pain got bad.

Sincerely,

Larry Otani and thanks for listening.

[zebra1922]

Thought I'd resurrect this thread as I've just had to take some time out from skating due to a knee injury.

I've got a history of multiple surgeries to repair various damaged ligaments and cartilage problems which has left me with a chronically unstable and arthritic right knee. Skating is generally not too bad for the knee as it is low impact, however some manouvres can cause trouble if I'm not keeping good posture, and I find my knee gets tired before the rest of my body, limiting skating time.

Advice? If you're injured you need to rest. Trucking on through is unlikely to help the problem. So rest up first. Next step is to try an improve knee strength, various different physio exercises are recommended but I find squats are great for building strength in the quads (which helps knee stability) and also exercises which work your hip flexors and glutes. Not well known but these muscles impact your posture, particularly the pressure your put on the medial (inside) of the knee, so if you suffer from over pronation which will put pressure on the inside of your knee, hip exercises can help this.

Hoping to be back at the rink this weekend, taking it easy for the first few sessions and see how I go.

Have fun out there.

[rwsz]

Larry very difficult in older age due to injuries, past injuries and especially strength. too much stress to really do now to be honest but if u really want to u need to do therapy and get a lot more strength in your knees. google knee exercises to do it if u don't already have it from drs.