Ow my knees!

[cowpaste]

Ok, I just starting fencing about...1/2 weeks ago. So naturally, all I know is footwork. The problem is that my knees are starting to hurt. I did all my footwork in class as a right hander (right foot foward) and my left knee started to hurt. I thought it was some old injury so I started doing lefty footwork at home instead. I woke up this moring with a slighty pained right knee.

Maybe I am just doing this all wrong? Front foot points straight ahead and back foot is 90 degrees from the front foot....right? Maybe I am bending one of my knees too much?

Anyway, I am really interesting in fencing, but I know to take knee injuries seriously. I hope I don't have to quit (already) because of this.

BTW, it is not some ache. I know what it feels like to have muscle aches and stuff. I'm pretty sure something is wrong.

[darius]

Go slowly, and make sure you're doing everything right -- it's pretty easy to do footwork with a knee bent slightly inward, or some other otherwise-minor nitpick. If it hurts to bend your knees at a certain level, try backing off a bit.

I used to have some pretty bad ankle and knee problems which required serious bracing at practices and ice/ibuprofen afterwards.

I just took them for granted. However, after doing a bunch of mirror-work to tweak my basics, and hitting the weight room to improve my strength, both of those have vanished.

darius

[cowpaste]

How exactly do I bend my knees inward?

[darius]

A bit tricky to describe. My fault.

Get en garde, with your knee over your heel, properly. Now shift your knee slightly to the left (if you're right-handed, opposite if you're left-handed).

See how they're not aligned, and your knee is slightly "inside" your guard? It's very common, and I've seen plenty of you're-good-enough-to-know-better lectures. (And been on the end of more than a couple...)

darius

[cowpaste]

Wait, so bending knees inward is bad, right? :P If so, I'm not doing that. I'm very careful about keeping my knee very "upright."

[Artisan]

You are then having a repeatable problem with the "back" knee, which I too experienced when I got started. It (for me) had to do with the angle of my hips relative to the line of fence (forward), as well as the angle of the back foot, and the height of the back heel off the floor. If you turn your hips slightly sideways, and rotate your back toes forward just a few degrees - like 86.25 :-) degrees. Remember "form" is not an absolute, but an idealization. No point striving for something that doesn't work for you.

Unless there is some other physiological problem, and you've ruled out poor form, then see the "veterans thread" which digressed into a discussion of aches, pains, ibuprophen and glucosamine / chondroitin supplements.

Two weeks is not a long time, but the the human body is a remarkable thing, and will adapt to your new pastime _ in time_.
Just don't overdo it, too much, too hard, too soon. Leg extensions with moderate weight or isometrics to strengthen your quadracepts will help

In a few more weeks you'll find new definition in all your leg muscles, a callus on your forefinger and the ball of your back foot, quarter sized bruises all over your chest and front arm. Shortly thereafter you will develop a growing credit card balance from buying equipment and then more equipment, and then class fees, lessons, club & strip fees and travel and competion fees... and lessons and lessons and tools to repair your equipment... and new equipment because you want the good stuff and you're worth it, and you'll love it because thats the way it is!

Oh yeah, you will annoy your non fencing friends by trying to recruit them, and bore your significant other(s) by making them come to watch you.

[angriff]

I believe i have had the same problem as you did.. to get rid of it, work on the strength of your adductors (the muscles on the inside of your thighs, antagonistic ones to the quadriceps). One easy exercise is to lean against a wall, with your feet away from it. Next, "slide" your back down the wall till you feel strain in your thighs. You'll come to a more or less sitting position, with your thighs close to being parallel to the ground. Hold this position for 2 or 3 minutes for starters, then gradually increase the time as your muscular endurance increases.

Take care, however, to ensure your knees are pointing forward when doing this exercise. The idea here is to strengthen the adductors, because the more footwork and lunges you do, the stronger the quads get, so they tend to "push" your knee to turn inward. This causes a sharp pain somewhere just below your kneecaps which can get real bad when you lunge.

As for how long you should remain in that position, it's up to you.. I've only ever done 6 minutes at most

[susanloper]

Here's something else to check. Do you have low or falling arches? Do your feet overpronate (roll inward) when you walk? I have this problem, but it never bugged me until I started fencing. Arch supports made all the difference. If your feet aren't hitting right, it's hard to keep everything else in the proper alignment.

[pammie003]

I had the same problem when I started. I found that once my leg muscles got stronger it stopped, because I stopped forcing my joints to compensate for my lack of muscle. Also, make sure that when you recover from a lunge, you bend your back leg. Keeping it straight during this action causes major joint stress!