How we move is largely down to habit. We get into bad habits often when something hurts or doesn’t move too well due to
- injury
- muscles becoming weak due to not enough activity
- poor posture
- too much sitting
In response another part of us moves more to compensate.
That short term compensation can easily become a bad habit if we don’t concentrate on changing it!
For example, we change jobs and start to sit a lot more than we are used to doing, our buttock muscles get weaker and our hip flexors get tighter. This can mean that the muscles on the inside of our thighs get tighter and one or both knees buckle inwards when we squat. This becomes a bad habit and we are not aware that every time we go upstairs, squat to pick something up, lift or just squat down to something – this habit continues. It doesn’t hurt so how can it do us harm …. well eventually it probably will!
You could feel pain in the inside of your knee, in your foot as the inside of the arch drops down too or in your low back as it twists…. all because you have not been aware of a bad habit your body has got used to.
Look at what this can do to the body in the picture below and every time you squat or go upstairs or lift something, try to change the habit so that your knee faces straight ahead rather than drops in. It could be that only one of your knees does this … being aware and changing bad habits can reduce a lot of pain in the future!
