My knees hurt pretty much all the time

Glory hole work is hard on the knees dude.

yeah - that could do it - especially if you have concrete and not asphalt streets (though those are tough too).

FWIW, I’ve had 5 knee surguries (both ACL’s, and 3 cleanups for cartiledge/arthritis/bone spurs). I gave up running a long time ago (I still miss it however). Cycling and Rollerblading for near home cardio, and I get some skiing in still (not the best for knees, but they handle the handful of times a year I go).

I’m gonna guess you gained a few pounds of “sympathy weight” during the pregnancy. That’s usually what does it. The knees do not like: 1. Carrying extra weight, and 2. Simulations of carrying extra weight (i.e. running). So your long term goal is weight loss. Extra weight is bad for backs, knees, your heart, etc. Just a little bit, over time, that adds up.

I’ve found I can alleviate the knee pain a bit by keeping it scretched and active (i.e. the dreaded exercise). Just a little bit really helps.

Little things like:

  1. Stretch like you are going for a run, but you know, running optional. Most people totally ignore stretching their legs if they aren’t running. Get in the habit of a 5 minute strech before you shower or whatever. I hide in the bathroom from the kids and do this. You can also do it while waiting for the coffee or whatever.

  2. Do some random exercises and stretches during the day. You will look like a total weirdo stretching in public so if that bothers you (it bothers me … a small amount, but not too much) then kind of hide and do it. Also stretch whenever the problem area bothers you. If I’m in a store or restaurant I’ll try and find a small alcove or just back into a wall or behind a retail rack.

My little stretches are:

The Baseball Catcher: Stand normal and keep your back straight. Bend your knees and get in the catcher position. Come back up. If there is pain, massage out your knees a bit while you are crouched. Finger signals optional.

The Fencing Lunge:. Stand with your feet kinda wide, like you are riding a horse. Now, move either your left or right foot (not both) as far out as you can comfortably go without moving the other foot. You should now be with one leg bent and the other straight. I extend my arms too, like I’m fencing, but you don’t have to. Alternate sides.

The Doorstopper: Put your foot against the wall like you are trying to prevent someone pushing in a door. Yo should feel this in your calf a bit. Now stretch this with gentle pressure. This one is great for your entire lower and back leg.

You could also get some ice packs and ice your knees after a run. We keep the gel packs in the freezer for sore knees, backs, etc now that we’re older…

My left knee has hurt off and on over the last 10 years but it’s been better since I’ve started playing tennis again. I imagine it’s the muscles in the leg being a bit stronger.

But now I have a sore right elbow from tennis. I guess it’s tennis elbow. When I play it gets so sore I have trouble hitting a backhand. So I’m not playing tennis now until spring. Then I may go back to the two-hander so I use my left arm for the backhand.

My thing is when I get down on the floor for some reason. Getting back up I feel like I need a crane to hoist me up.

It sure feels like Earth’s gravity pull has been increasing lately. We are all experiencing it, it can’t be just me aging!

Seriously jacked up my knee descending Cube Rock Pass in 2015; thing was huge and filled with blood. This continued for about 6 months if I packed for over 10 miles. One of my nursing friends who is into distance ultra-running (and over 50 y/o) got me into knee-strengthening exercises, and I’ve been fine ever since.

If a lack of joint cushioning is in play, the exercises won’t work very well at all, but still worth trying.

@Ronte so I’m 38, not overweight, fairly fit though could be more. I’m starting to get back pain. It seems triggered by a bad sleep, and/or a bad lift during the day, not thinking anything of it, but waking up with it the next day with the pain.

I’d describe it as a dull ache, lower back, that if I sit or stand just right goes away or down at least to 1%, but can seriously jab or even lose strength if I twist the wrong way. I stubbed my toe and my back took it like a shotgun blast, but it went away after a minute or so. The pain usually goes away in a week but now it’s triggered again. Advil helped a bit.

I’m super inflexible and never stretched. My bed is sagging but at 5 or 6 years old I’d like to get another couple years out of it (cheap modern disposable economy etc).

I don’t know anything about details, what could be wrong, and haven’t talked to my doctor about it. Booked an appointment once but it was gone and back to normal by the time I went, so cancelled. Advice?

My back went out on me three times. The spasms were indescribably painful. It’s now been a decade or so since it went out. I chalk the improvement up to losing some weight and twice-a-week strength training. I’m also hyper-aware of lifting properly and not pushing through pain.

Still, though … being over 50? Yeah, the little aches and pains are my ever-present companion,

Brian Regan also has something to say on this topic:

@Scott123 the boring answer from me would be - try to get in some stretching, and start working on building up your core muscles. Your back is holding you up all day, so it needs support =) Try yoga (you can even check up yoga for back pain, there are a lot of good and free channels on youtube), and some regular core strengthening exercises.

41 here. Back + hamstrings started hurting last year. It hurt so much I had trouble walking and bending over at times. For me, the pain is from sitting on my desk at work + home since the pain is worse after work and better on weekends.

I found some exercises that help me. I don’t know the names of most of them, I think a lot may be from yoga.

First one is very simple. Stand up. Put one leg in front of the other. Now bend down slowly, ideally to 90. At first I could only do a fraction of that. The key to this exercise thought is to bend at the waist. It is useless to bend the top half of your spine (like, where the ribs are and stuff). The point is to bend the parts by the waist. Alternate legs, because the one that’s not bent is gonna stretch the hamstrings a bit.

Second one is called pancake/piking.This is super hard. I can’t get close to doing it but every bit counts. Supposedly it took this guy six months to do. Here’s a link:

Third one, you can lie back. Then bend your knees up. Feet on ground. Then twist legs left and right. You can also hug your legs and then rock back and forth.

Fourth this is a good one. So lie down. Then bend knees up, raise your back so the shoulders stay in contact. Similar to the one above but your back is extended so back forms a nice say 20-30 degree angle with ground. Now, slowly roll down, from shoulders down to the butt. Do this slowly, it should feel really nice for the back. Repeat. I think this may be a form of kegels cuz my friend made fun of me when I did it.

For core strength, planks and pullups. Supposedly if I had a strong back in the first place I wouldn’t have any pain. However, the pain for me was after I started exercising so I don’t know if it’s a coincidence cuz we be getting older, or because your muscles get tighter when you get stronger (I didn’t stretch enough?)

edit: if you think it’s your bed, try sleeping this weekend on the floor with blankets/foam. Maybe a firmer surface. See if it helps.

I’ll try out the kegels tomorrow morning.

I watched that video, thanks. I need to start stretching, with legs locked I can barely tough below my knees.

I did 10 minutes, will do it again in the morning and afternoon tomorrow. Damn I want this gone, it’s really bad this time.

I would not recommend doing the stretch on the right side of that thumbnail if you have a bad back. You can stretch the hamstrings in a safer way that doesn’t risk compressing your discs by with standing and moving your legs up, and doing something more like the left image. Or the other stretches in the video. He says to ‘keep neutral spine’ but if you have a bad back, messing that up for one second can really screw you up.

Isn’t physiotherapy common in the US? In Denmark those are the people we visit to learn what kind of exercises and/or aids we need to better our bodies. They are like doctors, just more focuses on joints and muscles I guess.

As Quaro mentions, you can do more damage to a hurt if you start doing exercises to something you don’t really know what is.

That sounds like physical therapy. That exists here. In my state you need preauthorization past 30 days/ 10 visits. Back pain is a PITA and becomes chronic for 1/3rd of the USA pop.

I think the three usual treatments are 1) exercise 2) pills 3) surgery. None work very well. If they did we wouldn’t have this problem. I remember a recent article saying that exercise seems to have the best results. The added attention to opiods means they are moving towards that.

Don’t forget to breathe when you stretch.

I’m old. My knees don’t hurt (more than anything else that is) but they make some amazing crackling sounds when I squat.

It’s unfortunate, but the truth of the matter is that many practitioners here refuse to look at the body holistically. For instance, when I developed tenosynovitis in my thumb, I went to an orthopedic surgeon. They put injections into my thumb and sent me to physical therapy, where I did lots of exercises and had heat treatments and such. When nothing helped, the surgeon suggested surgery (this is my shocked face). It took a friend of mine, a massage therapist, to tell me the real problem was in my shoulder. The nerve problem there was keeping my hand from getting proper enervation and blood flow and keeping my thumb from healing properly.

A more recent example. I developed tinnitus in March of 2016. Not having learned my lesson, I went to an ENT (ear, nose, throat) specialist. He said there was no cure and nothing he could do, then charged me hundreds of dollars. Fortunately, the bastard is an idiot. But the success I’ve had treating it has come from “non-traditional” (in the us) methods like chiropractic.

I’m 65 and my knees used to hurt all the time too. I started taking glucosamine and chondroitin supplements a few years ago and they stopped hurting. They don’t work for everybody. I’m one of the lucky ones that responds well it. It doesn’t cost much to find out though, especially if you avoid the over-priced, over-hyped name brands, like Bioflex, and just buy generically labeled glucosamine and chondroitin.

But aren’t generic supplements pretty much hit and miss on dosage and purity?