Working Out with Bad Knees

What Personal Training has Taught Me

With spring and the end of my 6 month personal training package on the horizon it has me thinking about my training and running and how far I have come. For the last 4.5 months I have been fortunate enough to have Alannah by my side three days a week encouraging me through a rough last set, pushing me to higher limits, and forcing me to push through and find out what my true potential is.   It has been amazing, exciting, educational and fulfilling, but it has also been more than that for me.

Before coming into Epic and starting my training with Alannah I could tell you the season by the aches and pains in my knees. I love running, it has been something I have done for most of my life, and it was always a bonding point for my father and I, it has also provided hours of stress relief for me.  Unfortunately, with the way I was going I was getting ready to throw in my towel and admit defeat to my knees, thinking it was my only option. The cold and the increased distances was taking its toll and my knees were becoming increasingly vocal about what the stress I was putting on them.

Foam rolling helped (I probably wouldn’t be running without the help of one) and I really did do my best to remember to do my physio but the quality of my range of motion really hadn’t progressed as I had hoped, and it became increasingly possible that I would have to stop running and my goal of half or full marathon seemed to be pretty much over.  It was around this time I started training with Alannah.

I remember the first couple of days going through the Conditioning Phase and learning proper form for squats, one legged squats, lunges and different band work.  At one point I stopped and thought to myself “it’s just a squat how could it possibly be this hard?”

Favoring my sore knees I was so hesitant to go anywhere near 90 degrees in a two legged squat let alone a one legged squat and a weighted side lung forget felt impossible. I was terrified my knees seizing up or worse popping out of its socket again.  It took some time at first to realize that Alannah was pushing me outside of my comfort zone only because I was capable of going there and she wasn’t going to make me do anything that would hurt me.

Once I started trusting Alannah, the training, and especially my knees so many wonderful things started to happen. Besides just building up basic confidence in my physical abilities I started feeling more comfortable using weights, jumping on boxes, doing things on one leg, my stability started to improve and fairly rapidly my knee pain started to disappear. Most importantly I started to think that maybe just maybe I would get to keep running for a long time, a half or a full marathon was back on the menu.

Instead of doing a set of three boring exercises every two days I have learnt how to incorporate different fun movements and activities into my workout to help me strengthen my butt and build up balance and stability in my legs for running.  All of this has made me a stronger person in my running, yoga and just my regular day to day life (groceries have never felt so light). I have also learnt that no, a squat really isn’t that hard.

With spring right around the corner are you looking forward to anything? (besides the wonderful weather that is)

Brittany