Knees Hurt After Running. What to do?

I'm with @vespiquenn on this one.

Back off of any exercise that involves your knees until they stop hurting. Take it slow going up and down the stairs and avoid those workouts that include jumping, etc.

Once you can go about your day pain free, try running again for a mile or two. Go slow!

And if you didn't get your shoes from a running store, I too would recommend you get fitted - bring the pair you bought with you and they should be able to help you figure out if those are right or if you need something else

~Lyssa

xxkmanxx wrote: »

Thanks everyone for the helpful advice. I'm gonna take a little break from running until my knees feel better. I'll go for a few walks. But is there any decent exercises for beginners that don't involve my knees? Was looking for cardio, but I guess I can try some upper body workouts. Thanks again.

Kman,
I am going through this very thing, although I wasn't "running" outside, I increased my miles too quickly, and I logged 41 miles in a week, when I had been doing 22-25 weekly, treadmill, interval work and inclines. I have been off for a week this Sunday, RICE, rest, ice, compression, elevation, IBU, and now using the elliptical, bike, weights only. I have no pain with elliptical or bike, but terrible with walking and stairs.

Good luck from one over achiever to another!

Swimming, spinning class/cycling, crosstrainer/arc trainer, rowing, and elliptical are much easier on your knees than running (says the woman who is rehabbing after ACL surgery).

You over did it. I've been running over a year, and i don't run 7 days in a row. I run more mileage but only 5 days a week and gradually worked up to it.

I would stop until your knees don't hurt. RICE them (Rest, ice, compress, elevate). Do some other sort of cardio that doesn't hurt your knees, and you may have to try different things: walking, elliptical, cycling, swimming.

When your knees are feeling better, just do a short run. If there's no pain, you can run again with at least 1 to 2 days of non running in between.

Going forward, only increase mileage by 10% each week. So, if you run 3 miles a day for 2 days and 4 miles another day, that's 10 miles per week. You can add 1 mile the next week. You can either add that mile onto 1 of your days or add a 4th day by doing 3, 3, 2, 2 or some version of that. Also, it's a good practice to have a cut back week where your mileage is reduced every 4 weeks.

I would also research running form on youtube. If you are landing with your feet out in front of yoyr body instead of directly under your hips, you will continue to have knee pain. Warming up properly and stretching after runs can help prevent injuries too.

Here's a simple solution that works for me.

I rarely jog on the treadmill. What I do is walk on the treadmill at a 15 degree incline at a speed of 4
MPH. From what I have read, this is like 60 % faster than someone jogging at 4 MPH at 0 degree incline ( Google this and you can research this if you want confirmation) . Sometimes I even move the speed up on the same incline to get an even better workout. I do the incline walking to avoid having potential knee injuries.
Try it . It's like walking up a hill for the whole time.

Another alternative is to use the elliptical machine that uses your legs and arms.

Both alternatives will give you a good cardio workout and won't put the same amount of stress on your knees.
Let us know if it works out for you once you rest the knee.

Good luck.

One approach to apply: if it hurts don't do it. There are plenty of other low impact activities that are just as effective. I personally like stairs.

You need to strength train to strengthen the balancing muscles around the knee. Single leg exercises are MAGICAL for knee pain (speaking from personal experience). Single leg straight leg deadlifts, and Bulgarian split squats (look it up) will fix you right up. Then you can add more muscle building such as barbell squats and straight leg deadlifts (both legs) which can strengthen your posterior chain (back, gluts, hamstrings).
It really is the BEST way to get rid runners knee.