Crunchy knees!

Try doing lower impact strength exercises to build up the strength around the knees gradually. Also, a balance board like an indo board would help strengthen the little muscles around the knees and ankles.

The other thing that seems to help me with my crunchy knees is taking Glucosamine. It actually seems to help with the various aches and pains I get.

It could just be your joints popping, and that sound is a pressurized gas escaping from a pocket near the joint. My chiropractor said the popping is harmless. He also said it's an old wives tale that cracking your knuckles, back, etc will make the joints larger. I can pop joints from my neck down to my toes. It does sound like bubble wrap, and drives my MIL crazy!

If there's pain/discomfort along with the popping, I'd see a chiropractor or orthopedic doc rather than risk hurting your knees. If you are looking for a low impact exercise, you can get a mini trampoline from a sporting goods store and jump on that to music. Fun times!

The other thing that seems to help me with my crunchy knees is taking Glucosamine. It actually seems to help with the various aches and pains I get.

I also suggest Glucosamine but you need the one with the Glucosamine and Chondroitin in it (I don't know anything about +MSM supplements so cannot comment on that). Glucosamine Chondroitin will take a while to get into your system and start working its magic, but it will work.

If you're not having pain when you hear those funny sounds, it's probably fine. My knees and hips pop and crack and it's fine. So do my son's, and he's a dancer. It's ok unless accompanied by pain. If you're worried or feeling pain, see a doctor or chiropractor about it.

could be your quads aren't, how do I describe it, balanced in their strength. Basically they can pull your kneecap off track. I had that and it was made worse because of an injury. My knee would sound like someone bending an empty 20oz bottle back and forth doing just regular daily activities. I did a lot of physical therapy because I was so young at the time to strengthen my quads evenly and still ended up needing surgery to fix the problem. I broke my knee cap in half when I was 15. It took until I was 21 to find a doctor that didn't just chalk it up to growing pains and tell me to do more physical therapy. I had worked out my legs to the point I broke the leg press machine because of the weight on it, I was doing 3 sets of 10 at 1270 lbs it would have been more but w ran out of 45lbs plates and room on the bars. I was doing full stack leg extensions, with one leg and a person sitting on the pad as well. Once I had the surgery the doctor said I had the worse 21 year old knee he had ever seen. Now that leg is stronger and better than my "good" knee. I keep an eye on my quads and keep track of how my knee's feel and I will modify the leg extension by turning my foot in or out depending on which muscle I want to focus on.

I would talk to a doctor and ask about this, most people don't have it as bad as I did and can fix it with exercise and sometimes a special knee brace for a short time

My right knee has popped for decades. And I've been athletic all my life so my knees have been asked to do quite a lot. Every time I squat, bend down to pick something up etc. it pops. It's painless; I think the minute it started to hurt I would see a doctor.

Just one woman's experience.

I'm only 34 and have had crunchy knees for several years. It's embarrassing going down the stairs at work. When someone asks what that noise is, I say "don't listen!" I can't take glucosamine chondroitin because I'm allergic to shellfish. I just try to watch it doing squats. i fit starts hurting, I just don't go as low. but sometimes it seems there's no helping it. I feel your pain!

Don't give up the exercise! Pain now, less pain later. It will never go completely away. But it will become more managable. Grade yourself on a scale the day after every workout. I do this often with my knees. Cardio every day makes what was once an 8-10, now 0-2. Leg weight lifting helps too. Hit it hard, then recover lightly the next day. The pain will intensify at first, then lessen as your legs get stronger. Energy, fitness, attitude, spirals upward with regular hard intervals. Ignore the popping. That went down also.

Bump

Thanks all! Having read all these and done some research its most likely osteoarthritis, exacerbated by me being overweight :ohwell: I do low impact aerobics, and no lifting, running, staurs etc. I'm walking more and its getting less painful. I'll try some glucosamine - I'm taking magnesuim at the moment (apparently its good for "women"!) and tht helps (if I remember to take it).

I blame loads of dancing when I was young, follwoed by hrse riding in my teens, followed by tap through my child-bearing! Oh and I blame my mum, because apparently its hereditary (and I was blaming her bad knees on her weight!)

Yes, it is genetic---scientists now know which gene is responsible. It used to be thought that osteoarthritis was just from "wear and tear" (which certainly doesn't help) but the inflammatory attack on the cartilage in a joint is due to genetic influences. It is extremely common (about 2/3 of older people have it). The thought is, that somewhere waaaaay back in our ancestry, the gene mutated. So, hi cousin! What has made mine SERIOUSLY better is: 1) weight reduction 2) eliminating wheat and sugar (which has also helped significantly with fat loss) 3) pool exercise and 4) taking supplements like, a combo product consisting of glucosamine, chondroitin and MSM; I also take turmeric extract and finally egg shell membrane (you can make your own from a recipe on the web, if you can't find it--I would use organic egg shells). You can find a combo product of turmeric and egg shell membrane but it is VERY expensive so I am just going to make my own egg shell membrane and since I already take turmeric extract, I don't need the extra turmeric. Another supplement that I like is bromelain (an extract from the pineapple plant). It helps to break down fibrotic lesions caused by the chronic inflammation. I also eat a lot of homemade soups made with lower sodium organic chicken broth. Chicken broth has been shown to help osteoarthritis sufferers. You might not need all the supplements that I take but my arthritis had gotten very, very bad as I became less active and added more weight. I am now able to lift weights and go to the pool for exercise twice a week.

Well, I can't swim and am allergic to turmeric and shellfish :ohwell: But I've been sticking with my Rosemary Conley (which is cardio and toning) and found I'm getting less pain and more flexibility - the first couple of warm-up squats etc are noisy (and slightly painful) but by the end its not hurting and it doesn't hurt next day.

Thanks all for the advice and support!!

Glad that the cardio is working for you--but if it ever starts causing you more problems, you CAN do aquatic exercise. You don't need to swim to do aquatic exercise--it is done at the shallow end of the pool--and there are classes specifically designed to benefit arthritic folk. You can strap on a foam belt and do it at the deep end if you want (that's usually what I do because I think I get a better workout in the deep end--but then I'm a swimmer and fairly confident in the water). Sorry you can't do the turmeric or glucosamine. You might want to try the egg shell membrane as I feel that has been the most effective of anything that I take. Good luck!

I sound like I am walking on rice paper coming down the stairs every morning. I swear i could wake everyone up.

My knees crunch, usually when I do squats or lunges. I haven't been to the gym regularly for 6 months (just geting back into it) but the last time I was going regularly, I found using the leg press machine helped to strengthen my knees. I'm now back to the gym, back to crunchy knees and also back to the leg press and my lunges have increased from 5 each leg to 7 in a week.

OP- you and I have had parallel lives! As a child I had ballet class 3-4/week for years, and the last 27 years I've been riding horses. At this point I think I'd call a doctor if my knee *stopped* making a noise.