Meet Christena (we’ll call her “Chris” for short). She is a 76-year-old retired physician in Nova Scotia, mother of 2 grown daughters and 2 grown grandsons.
Even though she’s had patellofemoral syndrome all her life, about 6.5 years ago she tore it MCL (medial collateral ligament – one of the ligaments of the knee). Since then, it has been a serious nuisance – this it affected her ability to climb stairsand indeed kept her up all night quite often.
Fast forward a few months, and today, she climbs 7 steps, without painand he sleeps well.
How did he do it? This is what we will cover in this article. If you want to hear everything in her own words, you can watch this 9-minute video:
And if you want help with your knee pain, just reply to this email with the subject line “pain free knees.” This does not oblige you to do anything. Will just set up a quick 10-15 minute chat so I can understand your current situation and see if we can help. No pressure or sales.
Chris’s life before
Chris was always active and not overweight. She was already going to the gym a few times a week, just to stay active.
As I said earlier, about 6.5 years ago, she tore her MCL, which drastically affected her life, but she continued to go to the gym. Except her time there wasn’t really productive. In other words, she was active but not fit. In the summers he walks 18 holes of golf and gardens. But it’s definitely not the level of fitness you’d expect from someone who hits the gym 3-4 times a week.
About 5.5 years after tearing her MCL, she saw that she still lacked a lot of strength, range of motion, and balance. Additionally, the fact that she couldn’t walk up the stairs without pain or sleep through the night because of the knee pain told her it was going to be elevated.
But she didn’t know exactly what to do to improve her knee pain.
Fortunately, at this point, he’s been getting my newsletter for a while, he’s seen that we have a great history with knee injuries/knee pain (such as Stellis, who eliminated her knee pain in 8 workouts, at age 83, Carol, who canceled knee replacement surgery, Warren, who shut down his IT complex for 2 weeks, and pain in others).
Her big motivation was to regain strength and mobility so she could get out of her kayak without a face plant.
So I matched her with her personal trainer, Emmanuel, and off they went. But not without hesitation at first. He had some hesitations:
- Economic: Personal training is not cheap (although we have some options with lower prices and lower commitments).
- Safety: If she was going to aggravate her injury or get a new one, it doesn’t just affect her. Her family depends on her. Fortunately, we prioritize safety. That’s the whole appeal of personal training – it’s personal. We do not have a set program where the client must fit the program. Instead, the program fits the client.
Fortunately, the fact that her education was online was no obstacle for her. She’s pretty tech savvy (although the amount of tech you need to know to make online training work is just how to push 1-2 buttons, and that’s it), and the reason she liked online training is the know-how. She was not limited by the very limited expertise of personal trainers in her narrow geographic area.
Personal trainers are a dime a dozen. I make every effort to hire only the best trainers I can find. I wrote a detailed article about the hiring process here. Very few trainers have extensive experience in rehabilitation. But Emmanuel does, as do all the members of my team. This is something I both look at in my interviewees and train additionally once they are hired. You just can’t find this kind of expertise in a personal trainer at any random gym.
Many clients prefer online personal training because they either do overly self-aware to go to the gym, or they like that they can save travel time by exercising at home with the equipment they already have (even if it’s very minimal, like dumbbells and resistance bands).
With those hesitations out of the way, Chris began working with Emmanuel.
Chris’ exercise program
Most people think very simplistically: “if there is knee pain, you need to strengthen your quadriceps (the muscles in the front of the thigh). But remember from my article on knee pain – pain is a symptom, not a diagnosis. There are a million reasons why knees can hurt, including:
- MCL tear (in Chris’s case)
- ACL tear
- Meniscus tear
- Arthritis
- Patellofemoral syndrome
- Tendonitis of the patella
…and this is just scratching the surface. Do you know what they all have in common? Pain. Do you know the difference between all of them? The treatment. Exercises that may be good for one type of knee problem may be bad for another.
So Emmanuel had to be specific on MCL problems. Here are some of the exercises he chose:
- Lateral leg raises: to strengthen the muscles in the outer part of the hip (gluteus medius). In MCL tears, the effects are not just in the knee – they also affect the joint above (the hip) and the joint below (the ankle). So we need to restore strength to neighboring joints as well.
- Single leg calf raises: speaking of the joints below, this is to strengthen the connection between the knee and the ankle. This connection is the calf.
- Occupations: to strengthen the quadriceps (the muscles in the front of the thighs)
- Kneeling sissy squats: to strengthen the quadriceps when the hips are static.
- Deadlifts: to strengthen the hamstrings (muscles at the back of the thigh) and glutes (buttock muscles).
Chris has been with us for almost 9 months now, so this is just a snapshot of one of her programs. She has had a few projects during her time with us so far.
Plus, if you just read about the exercises, you’ll miss the “secret sauce» of the exercise program – the progress modeland the workout-to-workout adjustments made based on Chris’s progress from the previous set of workouts, energy/fatigue levels and more. Despite all this, no exercise program should be a static programwhere you do the same exercises for the same weights, sets and reps every time. An exercise program must be dynamic, intelligent, purposeful, and systematically change exercise variables to move the client forward… as opposed to randomly changing the schedule whenever you want, without rhyme or reason… like many personal trainers do.
Chris’ results
The theory is nice, but Chris came to us for results, not just good vibes. So how were the results? Pretty good – as expected.
- When he first started, he was able to squat and deadlift 30 pounds. Now, he uses 50 pounds for both exercises. Her the thighs are much stronger.
- Floor press: went from 10 lbs, up to 30 lbs. Her upper body (chest, shoulders and triceps) is much stronger.
- Bent rows: he went from 10 lbs., to 50 lbs. Her biceps and mid back are much stronger.
- The most impressive thing is that he could not jump before. Now her jumps 30 times per workout.
More importantly, however, the very reason it came to us – pain – has been greatly reduced (both in magnitude and frequency). Went from about one 6.5/10and something he felt every day, even at night, until now, only 2/10and something he feels much less often.
How Chris’s life is different now
Now that Chris has much less pain and more strength, how is her life different? Well, nowadays, she climbs 7 steps, 1-2 times a day, without pain. She still goes to the gym several times a week, except now, her workouts are really productive. She too she no longer wakes up at night because of her knee pain.
Plus, Chris was a runner before she tore her ACL and had to give it up. Until now. Now she can run for 20 minutes on the treadmill (although it still causes knee swelling, but now she can do it. Before, she just couldn’t).
Overall, we are very proud of Chris and how far she has come. If you want help with your knee pain, just reply to this email with the subject line “pain free knees.” This does not oblige you to do anything. Will just set up a quick 10-15 minute chat so I can understand your current situation and see if we can help. No pressure or sales.
