A few weeks ago, we had a client reporting to us about knee pain on his left leg when walking. He also talked about having issues balancing on his left foot and even showed us the custom orthotic insoles that his doctor recommended that he wear. Although they helped improve his ankle stability and alleviate some of his knee pain, he said that prolonged walking or running would still agitate the knee even if he wore his insoles.

We had him perform a one-leg balance test, and when he stood on only his left foot, he would immediately begin to fall to the side. Utilizing the Neurokinetic Therapy protocol, we found that his left tibialis posterior, a calf muscle, was compensating for his quads. In fact, it was so overactive and tight that it was causing his foot to arch excessively. This excessive arch made it hard for him to balance and find stability, but more importantly, it caused him to suffer from knee pain, because the knee joint was trying to stabilize for his ankle. We released his tibialis posterior and did an exercise to strengthen his quads and when he stood up on just his left foot again, he didn’t fall to the side! Even better, when we had him walk around, he had much less pain in the knee.