“I’ve tried resting it, but every time I start moving again it hurts.”
This is one of the most common things we hear from people with knee and hip pain.
They find themselves trapped in a frustrating cycle. They rest the area and it calms, but as soon as they start to move again, it becomes painful. They don’t know whether activity or rest it is the best strategy.
If we look at what often happens in joint based knee and hip pain, all joints need support from muscles to function. Ligaments hold joints physically in place, cartilage stop the bones rubbing, but it is the muscles that provide the spacing and the alignment of a joint.
Often joint pain isn’t as a result of a trip or fall, or even overexuberance in the gym. Usually, joint pain has built up over months, or even years due to imbalance in the muscles that support the joint.
A typical example of this might be someone in their 50s or 60s who gradually notices stairs becoming harder, walking becoming less comfortable and getting out of chairs requiring more effort. There wasn’t a specific injury. Instead, strength and movement quality have slowly declined over time until the joint begins to complain.
At The Reinge Clinic in Kenilworth, we regularly see people with knee osteoarthritis, hip pain, weakness after surgery, and long-standing joint problems, who have gradually become less active because movement hurts. As a result, the muscles supporting those joints have weakened, creating less stability and more pain. Ironically by moving less, you can actually increase the pain.
The solution is carefully targeted strength training. This is one of the most effective ways to improve joint function, reduce pain and regain confidence in everyday activities.
Why rest isn't always the answer
When a joint becomes painful, it is natural to try to protect it. We strap it, offload it with crutches and stop going to the gym.
This makes sense in the short term. If you have an acute injury, such as a twisted a knee, suffered a muscle strain or experienced a sudden flare-up of pain, temporary rest can help to calm inflammation and help the healing process.
This is usually accompanied by swelling, heat, redness and pain on movement. This sort of pain absolutely needs rest and ice for several days. But even then, we would start active movement on day one, we just wouldn’t take that movement into pain.
However, a lot of pain isn’t acute and there is no swelling, heat or redness. It hurts intermittently or on certain movements, and this sort of pain is usually biomechanical in nature. In this case resting the muscle creates more weakness and reinforces the poor biomechanics, which means ultimately, the muscles supporting the joint get weaker and the pain increases.
The hidden role of muscle strength
When a knee or hip joint hurt we immediately assume it is the joint itself, but often it is referred pain from the muscles that is occurring. Then we walk, the muscles need to
- Absorb forces running though the joint.
- Control movement patterns
- Maintain balance and stability
- Control joint alignment and position
They do this in perfect synchrony, each firing at the correct time to allow movement. When those movement patterns go wrong, or one muscle starts to protect a weaker muscle. The alignment of the joint can change and pain inevitably ensues at some point in the future.
One of reasons why people with osteoarthritis frequently notice increasing difficulty despite scans showing little change in the joint itself, is due to muscle weakness, whether around the affected joint, or an area that helps to align the affected joint.
Why we focus on biomechanics
At The Reinge Clinic, we don’t simply hand out a sheet of exercises. We assess how you move.This includes looking at:
- Walking mechanics
- Balance and Functional strength
- Joint mobility
- Muscle activation patterns
Two people may both have “knee pain”, but the reasons behind that pain can be completely different.
Let me explain. The knee is very heavily reliant on the strength of the foot. If the foot collapses inward when walking, the forces travelling through the knee also move inward. Over thousands of steps each day, this creates abnormal loading through the joint. The person feels knee pain, but the underlying problem may actually start lower down the body.
Understanding how the whole body moves, allows us to build a rehabilitation programme that addresses the real cause of the problem rather than simply treating symptoms. It is rare for us not to treat a knee issue by looking at the foot, or a hip issue by rebalancing your upper leg.
Strength training doesn't mean heavy gym work
One of the biggest misconceptions we encounter is that strength training means lifting heavy weights. Any muscle will strengthen if it is overloaded and to overload a muscle you just need to ask it to lift more than it usually would.
So, let’s say you normally collapse down into a chair, getting you to slowly lower yourself into a chair with control would be overloading. This is a very valid strength exercise. However, we would rarely start with functional exercises.
We usually start by understanding which muscles are doing their job and target those muscles one at a time. For this we use resistance bands. They come in different colour, each one with a different resistance. To overload a muscle, we would simply start on the easiest band and slowly progress onto bands with more and more resistance.
Balance between the left and right legs is another example of why pain can occur in joints. Let’s say you have a v strong left leg and a v weak right leg. Pain could occur in either leg, the left leg because you are asking it to do too much, or the right leg because it is unstable. We would always rebalance this first, using resistance bands, balance exercises or foot strengthening before we started on more functional movements.
Why not functional strength?
When we do something that is functional. So, getting up off a chair, doing a squat, walking up starts. Our brains will automatically use the strongest and most efficient muscles to do the job. Ultimately this reinforces the poor movement pattern that created the pain in the first place.
By stopping and isolating which muscles are weak, we can change those movement patterns. Then, when we have balance, we build in functional exercises to ensure the firing patterns between muscles are strong and correct. This gives a much longer-term solution to the problem.
Why strength training helps knee osteoarthritis
One of the biggest myths surrounding osteoarthritis is that painful joints should be protected through rest. In reality, osteoarthritic joints often respond extremely well to appropriately prescribed strength training.
Stronger muscles help absorb force, improve stability and reduce stress passing through the joint. This is one of the reasons exercise is consistently recommended within modern osteoarthritis guidelines.
Local knee & hip pain treatment in Kenilworth, Warwick and Leamington Spa
If knee or hip pain is stopping you enjoying walks, exercise, gardening or everyday activities, understanding why the pain developed is key to solving the problem. For most long-term knee and hip problems, the answer isn’t simply resting more. The answer is identifying which muscles have become weak, understanding how your body is moving, and rebuilding strength in the right places.
At The Reinge Clinic, we combine physiotherapy, sports therapy and biomechanical assessment to identify the reasons you have pain and create a practical rehabilitation plan tailored to you and your specific circumstances.
Whether you’re dealing with osteoarthritis, recovering from surgery, have a sporting injury or simply finding that your knees and hips hurt in the morning, targeted strength work rather than rest is the solution.
Book an assessment
If you’d like to understand what’s driving your knee or hip pain and what can be done about it, give us a call at The Reinge Clinic in Kenilworth to arrange an assessment.
Frequently asked Questions
- Can strengthening exercises help knee osteoarthritis?
Research shows that strengthening the muscles around the knee can reduce pain, improve walking ability and increase confidence in daily activities. - Should I rest with knee pain?
If it is acute pain, with heat, redness and swelling then yes, rest and ice for a couple of days while gently moving the joint through a pain-free range. If it isn’t acute, rest is unlikely to help and targeted strength work is the solution. - Can weak muscles cause hip pain?
Yes weak muscles can cause hip pain. The hip area is large, encompassing the lower back, pelvis and leg and muscle imbalance and dysfunction in any of these areas can cause hip pan. - Who treats knee osteoarthritis in Kenilworth?
The Reinge Clinic provides biomechanical assessment, physiotherapy, sports therapy and rehabilitation programmes for people with knee osteoarthritis and related conditions.