Bad knees aren’t genetic: the uncommon truth and treatment for degenerative knee pain

Do you find yourself popping an ibuprofen to tide you over that sore knee? Telling yourself it isn’t so bad, really? You’re able to get around for the most part.

But then you hobble down the stairs, lingering a little longer on your ‘good’ leg. You look for the closest parking spot to minimize the inconvenience. You pretend to ‘even out’ that slight limp when walking to your kid’s orchestra performance. You don’t want to invite pity, you’re 40-something after all!

You tell your curious friend, “It runs in the family. Mom and Dad have had their share of knee pain and surgeries.”

But when you’re quiet with yourself, you question… You wish there was a better way. A way out of resigning your knees to your genes. Does this resonate? A lot of my clients start out like you. Resigning, but then hoping and wanting better. Better than accepting your lot.

For the sake of adventuring with your kids, for the soothing sound of wind combing the trees on a trail walk, for feeling young enough to have fun without thinking twice. If you’re in that place of wanting better, you’re courageous. It takes courage to want outside of the narrative you might’ve been served.

And to tell you from 10 years of helping clients with knee pain, that ‘bad knee’ may not entirely be your genes. It might just be the way you learned to walk, modeling after your parents.

Walking is a learned skill in humans, not genetic

Walking isn’t genetic in humans, unlike goats, lambs, horses, and cows that drop out of their mom’s hind, then waddle for a few minutes and Voila! are moving about in minutes.

It isn’t so charmingly quick for us. It takes between 12-18 months for human babies to start walking. One might think we’re slow to learn!!

We’re slow because we ‘LEARN’ to walk. We go through developmental stages... We roll from side to side, we end up on our bellies, we sit up, absolutely delighted with sights that are more interesting than staring at the ceiling. We creep on the floor reaching for that toy that's just out of our reach. We crawl on all fours, tracking that elusive sibling, until one day…

…we push ourselves up to stand, we take our first steps, we refine that Frankenstein toddler waddle to a more graceful collateral walk. We hold our head still in the middle, ready to see with clarity, pointing our fingers to seek.

Kodak moments we’ve bottled and treasured with our children, haven’t we?!!

While these developmental stages are universal, they are nested in our immediate environment—our parents and socio-cultural milieu. And that is the difference! Our natural developmental stages and how we move in our bodies are also colored by our environment. We imitate our parents—taking on their walk, smile, particular expressions, and eventually even speech.

The way you learned to walk might be the reason for your knee pain (and your parents’)

Walking is so common, yet it couldn’t be more uncommon in its details across cultures and families. If you’ve watched kids walking home from school, you know that kids of the same family walk the same….

…the same ounce of bounce or a hint of a drag, 
…heads caulked in conversation the same way…
….knocked knees with a slight waddle…
….some walking on toes like ballerinas, landing momentarily on their heels…
…others striking their heels with a staccato note….

Some of these acquired family patterns are harmless or even fun. Others cause us much pain as adults and those are worth unlearning from. 

You can relearn to walk without knee pain

We can relearn to walk and do our life with ease and fluidity, by revisiting the essential aspects of those developmental stages. We can unwind from patterns that are hurting us. That is what I teach in my 1:1 work with clients. 

We make gentle, whole-body movements, guided by my touch and voice. Clients often discover that the pain in their knee is gone when they learn to move their torso with freedom. In other words, it’s not their knee at fault, but just the way they move in their body that was causing strain on their knee. They discover solidity in their legs to support their body without torquing their knee.

The lightness and strength that clients experience through this neuromuscular re-education is above and beyond what they could ever have from any strengthening or stretching routine.

If you’re craving freedom in your body and are ready to experience a mind-opening way to achieve it, I am excited for you. Click here to schedule a consultation with me or contact me here to discuss if this is right for you.