Chas Tennis - can you expand on what you said above re: knee and shoulder issues? Are you saying they are related? And related to posture? Well obviously bad posture can lead to shoulder issues and impingement, etc. but is that somehow related to your knees too? I'm working on it but I still have "bad" posture, a left shoulder issue, and also a left knee issue so your post caught my eye.
When you say search posture + knee do you mean to type in "posture + knee" exactly like that into the search box? I'm VERY interested in locating these threads you refer to. Thanks!
I don't have much formal background except two college courses on physical fitness and exercise and a lot of reading.
From what I have read I subscribe to the view that posture can be very important to long-term joint health. Some think predominately in terms of age or overuse or heredity or stressing when injured, etc. but posture belongs in that list of significant causes. Worse, viewing it as just age misses possible corrections that might result from correcting posture. Posture might be one of the more important things to consider since you can do something about it, unlike some of the other causes like age.
The simplest example to visualize is the spine with a stack of vertebrae (described in one article as an aligned stack of pancakes). If the spine is misaligned so that one side of a vertebra gets too much stress then that area might be injured especially in athletics. Its not as easy to visualize the knee or shoulder.
First, all posture is from head to toe. But there are some very close associations. For the knee, the hip and pelvis determine a lot of the knee posture. Tight, loose or weak muscles in the hip especially can set the knee up for trouble.
Also, imbalances among the quad muscles can set the knee cap up for poor tracking, pain on bending the knee. These are complex subjects and require professional evaluations. If you stretch a muscle that is fine it might make a condition worse.
I had a torn rotator cuff from gym work(not my dominant tennis shoulder). In the treatment of that injury, the physical therapist told me that they treat baseball pitchers by evaluation the shoulder posture - mostly scapular posture - and correcting weak muscles with strengthening and tight areas with stretches. I became a believer from that experience. When I look at Maria Sharapova I can see that her shoulders come a little too far forward probably from the well known imbalance of overdeveloped front muscles, pecs, etc. Again the shoulder is very complex and needs professional evaluation, certainly so if injured.
I think it is very important to know the proper terms for the joint movements otherwise misunderstandings occur. For example, look down at your knee and rotate it. That's not knee rotation its hip rotation! As a reference I like the Manual of Structural Kinesiology, C. Thomson. Get an older edition such as the 15th as it is much cheaper than the current one used as a college text. est. $20 used? Anatomy reference also.
In this Tennis Warehouse Health & Fitness Forum, "SEARCH" box above, use any 4 or 5 of these terms together to find the threads. Several in the last 6 months.
knee posture knee pain patellarfemoral Posture Guy Chas Tennis Charliefedererer shoulder posture Blackburn exercises impingement
Eric Cressey tight rectus femorus
Put in your own words - pain under knee cap, etc. I don't think that the order of the words is important. Use quotes "Eric Cressey" to limit the number of finds more specifically?
I would not accept any conclusions or information from the internet especially from forums but use it to start researching the problem. There are, however, a lot of very interested people finding great information.
Eric Cressey has a lot to say on posture issues. Johns Hopkins Sports Clinic list.
