When the knee joint is inflamed and painful due to excessive wear or deterioration of tissue repair ability, the doctor will advise you to rest the knee joint more.
The principle of knee pads is to use elastic bandages to limit joint movement when you need to use your knees a lot. If you move less, the chances of articular cartilage wear will be less.
When the knee joint is injured, wearing knee pads can also maintain the stability of the joint and avoid delaying the healing due to improper tissue traction. For example, Jeremy Lin injured his left knee last year and needed to wear knee pads to protect his joints after recovery.
Healthy people wear knee pads, but it will affect muscle strength.
Many people see that star players often wear knee pads and wrist guards, and often have the illusion that "wearing protective gear is more professional" and follow them to buy these equipment.
However, experts do not recommend that you wear knee pads without problems. Because wearing knee pads also has disadvantages, when the knee pads provide the strength of knee joint support, the muscle groups in the legs don't have to spend too much effort to maintain the stability of the knees. In the long run, they will degenerate due to lack of training.
Therefore, people who do not have the problem of repairing knee cartilage wear do not need to wear knee pads to prevent knee joint wear even if they engage in jogging, dancing and other sports that use their knees a lot. Just like ordinary people, you can't walk with crutches if you have nothing to do.
Wearing knee pads during exercise can't completely avoid sports injuries. Because the cause of knee injury is usually caused by external impact or excessive force, the general knee pads are not enough to resist these impacts.
In addition to volleyball, roller skating, street dance and other sports, knee pads are needed for protection because of knee collision accidents, but you must go to sporting goods stores to choose sports-specific protective gear with hard texture or thick pads.
As for what is tied to Jeremy Lin's calf? In fact, it is a functional suit, which can increase sports performance, reduce the burden of muscles during a lot of exercise, and is less prone to fatigue.
Knee pain, wear knee pads, be careful to make the situation worse.
Many people will buy knee pads to wear when they find that their knees hurt, but there are many reasons for knee pain, some just need rest or hot compress, and some may need short-term physical therapy. When the knee is uncomfortable, you should see a doctor first to check the problem, and then decide whether to use knee pads.
Sometimes the pain in the knee after exercise is caused by the action exceeding the load of muscle strength, which leads to the injury of ligaments and tendons around the knee. At this time, we should first adjust the intensity of exercise and strengthen the muscle strength training around the knees, instead of buying knee pads.
For example, Mrs. Wang recently joined the gym. A week later, aerobic dance felt a little sore in her knees, so she bought a pair of knee pads to wear. As a result, after wearing it, the feeling of knee pain did not decrease, and I also felt the tension of my feet when dancing. Only after the examination did I know that the feeling of pain was originally caused by muscle overuse and strain.
Determine the knee problem, and then choose the knee pad style.
Kneepads on the market can be divided into three types according to their styles, and their protective parts and functions are different.
1. Integrated knee pads
The most traditional kneepad, which completely covers the knee, can fix and support the whole knee joint.
Joint problems are small, and only people engaged in ordinary daily activities can use this kind of knee pad. It can also keep warm knees for patients with degenerative arthritis.
Some styles will add metal strips or elastic bands on both sides to strengthen the fixation. When the medial and lateral ligaments of the knee joint are injured, it can provide greater support and avoid excessive movement or dislocation of the knee joint.
Step 2 open the knee pads
It has the basic function of kneepad, but designing an opening at the position of patella (the bone protruding in front of the knee) can reduce the pressure of kneepad on patella, strengthen the fixation of patella and reduce the friction caused by exercise.
This kind of knee is especially suitable for patients with patella problems, such as chondromalacia patellae and patella displacement.
In addition, if you want to engage in sports with high knee joint mobility, such as jogging and mountain climbing, you can also use this knee pad.
3. Knee pads (also known as patella compression band)
It is tied and fixed to the tendon below the kneecap. It can reduce the stretching of the tendon during exercise and make the tendon rest moderately, but it has no protective effect on other parts of the knee joint.
This kind of kneepad is suitable for patients with tendon injury, such as patellar tendinitis commonly known as "knee jumping", which often occurs in athletes who run and jump frequently, such as basketball, track and field athletes or people who ride bicycles excessively.
Strong support is not necessarily better.
When choosing knee pads, the stronger the support force and the larger the coverage area does not mean that it is the best knee pad, because the better the support force, the more limited the joints, and the more likely it is to cause muscle weakness.
It's best to ask an orthopedic or rehabilitation doctor to check your knee joint, evaluate the appropriate type of knee pads, and whether it is necessary to strengthen local support.
You'd better try it on yourself and walk around before you buy it. The size and tightness of the knee pads are good as long as they are comfortable to wear, but there is still a feeling that the knees are restricted, so as not to lose the meaning of the knee pads.
It is not too tight to have an indentation on the leg after wearing it, but if the calf feels swollen, or the foot is numb, cold, and the skin color turns white and purple, it means that the knee pads have hindered the blood circulation of the lower limbs and should be replaced.
In addition, because everyone's knees, thighs and calves are different in thickness, some cloth knee pads will roll up inward because of uneven tightness. If you don't want to block the movement all the time for adjustment, or often engage in multi-lateral movement of the knee joint such as basketball and tennis, you can choose the adjustable knee pads designed by hook and loop, which are also more durable.
If the knee pads are temporarily used because of injury, they may need to be worn again as long as they are fully recovered. However, if you are a patient with degenerative arthritis, it is best to wear protection when going up and down stairs, sitting on your knees, or running and jumping, and take it off immediately when you rest.
As for whether the warm-up before exercise is needed, it should be different because of the different warm-up actions. Because stretching joints is one of the purposes of warm-up, wearing knee pads will hinder joint activity, so you can take off the knee pads first, but try to slow down the stretching speed and don't use too much force.
If the warm-up is mixed with jumping, squatting, or knee weight-bearing movements, or if you feel uncomfortable with your knees, you can wear knee pads.