On Your Knees: The Hard Climb Beyond Pain

Nancy McDermott and brother Paul summit Mount Washington in July 2011

by Martha Hicks Leta

You know that feeling when you try to get out of bed in the morning? Like you’re the Tin Man waiting for Dorothy and her oil can to relieve your rusty joints? It’s not just the Tom Brady’s and Dan Marino’s of the world who suffer from knee problems. Most adult mortals greet the day with some sort of joint stiffness and pain. Often we accept this as a natural part of aging. But what do you do when that pain starts turning your body into a house of cards?

It goes something like this: the knees hurt, so you cut back on exercise. The lack of exercise leads to weight gain, putting more stress on those joints. Next, the supporting muscles and ligaments around the knees become weaker limiting your range of motion, or worse, leaving you open to further injury. Left to chance that bit of knee pain can lead to a host of other maladies, like obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, type 2 diabetes and an overall sense of misery. So, what can be done?

For Duxbury resident Nancy McDermott, years of high intensity competitive sports (college basketball, tennis, skiing, triathlons) lead to a gradual increase in knee pain from the time she was in her thirties. Over the years, she scaled back her exercise to accommodate the degrading knees and the busy schedule that came with raising a family and working full time. By the time she reached her mid-fifties, that knee pain was preventing her from doing, not only the activities she had once loved like skiing and playing tennis, but even routine things.

“Simple tasks of moving around, climbing stairs, getting out of a chairlift and getting through airports were becoming more difficult,” says McDermott. “I knew that for my overall health I could not continue down this path.”

McDermott also knew she needed an expert to help her regain her fitness without injuring herself further. That’s when she found her way to Fitness Together in Norwell.

Trainer Alicia Tasney knows knees. A lifelong athlete, Tasney was just days away from entering her freshman year at UMass Dartmouth on a full lacrosse scholarship when an accident left her with a host of injuries, including a fractured knee cap. The scholarship gone, Tasney faced an extended and challenging healing process. Eventually she decided to take what she had learned from her recovery and apply it to helping others as a personal trainer.

When Alicia took on Nancy McDermott as a client, she could see the toll the knee problems had taken on her. “When I started training Nancy, she could barely squat. She even had a hard time getting up from a chair without using her hands to assist. Same with going up and down stairs. ”

Nevertheless, Tasney had a plan. One of the first things she did was help Nancy focus on lowering her body mass index to reduce the stress on her joints. This is especially important since every pound of extra weight can add up to three pounds of pressure on the knee joints when walking and ten pounds when running. Healthy weight is a key factor in reducing knee pain.

Tasney also started Nancy on a program that would strengthen the muscles supporting her knees. “It’s a slow process but we started with a simple sitting down and standing up without using hands and doing step-ups at a very low height. From there we just progressed by adding weights or adding height to the step-ups, as well as lateral movement.”

Nancy says Tasney pushed her harder than she ever would have pushed herself, but she trusted her trainer and soon saw results. In seven months, Nancy had dropped 30 pounds, could climb stairs without knee pain and even jog. Best of all she was able to enjoy skiing again.

Her confidence renewed after a day of skiing at Bretton Woods, McDermott sat gazing out at Mount Washington and began to ponder a challenge she wouldn’t have dreamed of less than a year prior: climbing to the top of that mountain. Her brothers and sons had made the climb before and Nancy had heard about the difficulties. The weather can be incredibly hostile, and the footing can send even the most agile athlete tumbling. But as she grew stronger, she began to consider the challenge more seriously. By June she had set a date with her brother to make the trip.

“It was a difficult climb as the rocks were slippery from rain the previous night. It tested my arms, legs and core as some parts were quite steep or required good balance as I moved from rock to rock. It took us about 4 1/2 hours. My knees held up really well.”

Tasney is very proud of her client’s achievement and says Nancy McDermott is a perfect example of the important role exercise plays as we age. “Keep in the habit of exercising the older you get. Keeping the muscles strong will lower the chances of getting pains in any part of the body. We got Nancy to where she is by strengthening all the muscles that surround the knees. She is pain free now.”

McDermott is clearly grateful for the role her Fitness Together trainer has played in helping her get strength back. “It is just so great to be able to move more quickly and confidently in day-to-day things. I feel completely different in everything I do. I can not think of a better investment.”

To learn more about preventing knee pain go to Real Age

Or speak to your nearest Fitness Together trainer. In Norwell call 781-659-0034. In Cohasset call 781-383-8004. In Hingham call 781-749-2511. For all our FT Studios in Northern New England, go to FTGetsResults.com

Exercise Helps Arthritis

Reprinted with permission from the American Council on Exercise. Based on: Hoffman, DF Arthritis and Exercise Primary Care 20:895-9100, 1993.

From NPR’s Morning Edition

If you suffer the pain and stiffness of arthritis, you may not be enthusiastic about exercising. But arthritis specialists say that’s exactly what you need to do.

It’s advice that 65-year-old Sibyl Zaden has taken to heart. A former marathon runner and triathlete, Zaden now suffers from osteoarthritis in her shoulders and knees. “My problem is lifting my arm,” she says. “It’s very painful. I can lift it halfway and that’s it.”

Her knees hurt, too. But that doesn’t stopped Zaden from going to the gym and getting on a treadmill for 15 to 30 minutes. Her doctor, UCLA Medical Center rheumatologist Roy Altman, says more people with arthritis should follow her lead.

“The one thing that people don’t understand is that you have to do something,” Altman says. “When you don’t do anything with osteoarthritis of the knee, arthritis actually gets worse.”

Three years ago, federal health officials recommended that people with arthritis exercise moderately every day for about 20 minutes. But that’s not what’s happening.

A recent study at Northwestern University looked at activity among 1,000 adults, between 49 and 84 years old, who had osteoarthritis of the knee. Ninety percent of the people were not exercising, according to lead scientist Dorothy Dunlop.

“That means they did not participate in any moderate activity lasting at least 10 minutes at any point over the course of a week,” she says.

Even more alarming, 40 percent of men and nearly 60 percent of women were total couch potatoes, Dunlop says.

“Two-thirds of their day was being sedentary,” she says. “It was sitting — might have been sitting at the office, might have been sitting in front of television. We don’t know details of exactly what they were doing, but it was very clear that a large portion of that day was spent very close to zero” exercise.

So why is moving, and exercise, so important?

Arthritis slowly breaks down the body’s natural shock absorbers, the cartilage, that jelly-like substance between our bones and in our joints. When that happens, blood doesn’t circulate as freely and doesn’t deliver adequate nutrition to the cartilage. All the cartilage nutrition, says Altman, comes through the joint. Massaging the joint through exercise helps get the blood supply going which, in turn, helps cartilage take in nutrition.

Another big plus for exercising through arthritis pain: Muscles surround the joint, and when muscles are bigger and stronger, the joint is more protected.

By exercising, “you actually reduce the stressors on the joint itself,” Altman says. “The muscles take up the weight and take up the pressures, instead of the joint taking up the weight and the pressures.”

Exercise doesn’t reverse damage that’s already done. But it helps prevent arthritis from getting worse, and it has the added benefit of keeping excess pounds off. That can make a huge difference on the joints that support most of the body’s weight: the hips and knees.

“Six times your body weight goes through the inside of the knee,” Altman says. “If your muscles are weak, that adds direct pressure that’s not very good for the knee. If the muscles are stronger, you reduce that pressure that goes through the knee and improve the function.”

The heavier you are, the greater the pressures on both your knees and hips.

Altman says if you have arthritis and don’t exercise, it’s time to start. But begin slowly. You need exercises like walking to build endurance, and Pilates or yoga to build strength.

 

Hear The Full Story HERE

The Role Of Exercise In Arthritis Management on Johns Hopkins ArthritisCenter.org

For more information on Fitness Together’s customized fitness programs for individuals and groups, and to find a Fitness Together studio near you, go to FTGetsResults.com