Went for a bit of a run after a day in college today.
Running, I find, is very useful to help clear the head and blow the cobwebs away. While I out one of my knees was giving me a little bit of pain so I thought I recount a little story for all of those of you out there who don't run because of knee pain...
Nearly 20 years ago I went to see my GP (a rather portly chap of about 50) as one of my knees was making a clicking noise and was a little bit painful. He said and I quote '...these things happen as you get older...' and '...you'll be alright as long as you don't take up jogging!'
A few months later I was working out at my local 'big box' gym and a trainer came over whilst I was on the leg extension machine (I was not a PT and had not discovered free weights yet!) and had a chat about what he had seen as I was working. He could see that my knee caps were not tracking properly and the noise was bone grinding over bone. From there it was a simple case of changing the angle of the exercise to strengthen one muscle and stretch out another and stop the problem.
You see, GP's whilst being very good at general health and their own extra speciality (if they have chosen one) are not experts at everything and few are focussed on sports medicine. They are more likely to err on the side of caution and get you to stop doing something that may be risky than spend time looking for a root cause.
This is not a criticism of GP's, just a call for people to understand that a second opinion may be useful - one from another professional to support or question the initial advice if this is not they're specialism. Asking for a referral to, say a physiotherapist will not usually be considered as a criticism either except by the most arrogant of practitioner.
Right, back to the story - having now found a treatment for the problem I set about rehabilitating my knees and then took up running. Loads of 5k, 5m, 10k, half marathons and 5 full marathons later I off to Florida in Jan 2015 to run the Dopey challenge! (5k, 10k, Half and Full marathon on 4 consecutive days)
Running, I find, is very useful to help clear the head and blow the cobwebs away. While I out one of my knees was giving me a little bit of pain so I thought I recount a little story for all of those of you out there who don't run because of knee pain...
Nearly 20 years ago I went to see my GP (a rather portly chap of about 50) as one of my knees was making a clicking noise and was a little bit painful. He said and I quote '...these things happen as you get older...' and '...you'll be alright as long as you don't take up jogging!'
A few months later I was working out at my local 'big box' gym and a trainer came over whilst I was on the leg extension machine (I was not a PT and had not discovered free weights yet!) and had a chat about what he had seen as I was working. He could see that my knee caps were not tracking properly and the noise was bone grinding over bone. From there it was a simple case of changing the angle of the exercise to strengthen one muscle and stretch out another and stop the problem.
You see, GP's whilst being very good at general health and their own extra speciality (if they have chosen one) are not experts at everything and few are focussed on sports medicine. They are more likely to err on the side of caution and get you to stop doing something that may be risky than spend time looking for a root cause.
This is not a criticism of GP's, just a call for people to understand that a second opinion may be useful - one from another professional to support or question the initial advice if this is not they're specialism. Asking for a referral to, say a physiotherapist will not usually be considered as a criticism either except by the most arrogant of practitioner.
Right, back to the story - having now found a treatment for the problem I set about rehabilitating my knees and then took up running. Loads of 5k, 5m, 10k, half marathons and 5 full marathons later I off to Florida in Jan 2015 to run the Dopey challenge! (5k, 10k, Half and Full marathon on 4 consecutive days)
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