For the health of your knees: don't lock your knees! Learn how to stand with straight and relaxed knees.

Have you ever checked into your body to notice how much tension you carry in your muscles?  Constant muscle contraction reduces the amount of blood flow in and out of the area, as well as compresses the joints that the muscles cross.  Compression of the joint causes decreased mobility, friction, misuse of the limb, and potentially arthritis. 

We tend to carry a lot of tension in many of our muscles, but many of us are more aware of our neck and shoulders.  Feel your neck and shoulders now, are they tense? Look in the mirror, and see if your shoulders are elevated. Notice if your collar bones are angled up at a diagnal to your shoulder.  Let your neck and shoulders relax.  Take a breath in, and on your exhale allow the shoulders to relax and come back down.

Now let’s check the tension in your legs.  We should be able to stand without clenching our butt cheeks together, or gripping our quadricep muscles in the front of the thigh.

In order to check the tension in the legs, we need to have a straight leg.    When I teach this in my classes many people get confused because they have been told, “don’t lock your knees!”  The leg isn’t locked if it is straight.  It is “locked” when the quad muscles are contracted.

There are people who are able to hyperextend their knees, it looks like this. Photo taken from: wikimedia commons.

There are people who stand with constant knee flexion (bent knees). It looks like this.

To assess the tension in the quad, the leg should be straight like this. A straight leg means that the midpoint of the hip, the midpoint of the knee and ankle bone should line up vertically.

If the quads are relaxed, you should be able to contract your quads (notice your knee cap lift up) and return to the relaxed state.  If you can’t tell if your knee caps are lifting, more than likely your quads are already in a contracted state (this means that your patella is compressed against your femur, creating decreased mobility and friction which can lead to arthritis). Check out the videos below:  On the left she is able to lift and lower her knee caps, so her quads are relaxed.  If you weren't able to release your quads, go lean against the wall for support with your feet about 2-3 feet from the wall.  Notice the knee caps in the video on the right.  As you are able to contract and relax the quads, move closer to the wall until you are 3 inches away. If you are still able to relax, then move away from the wall and check again.  This is a big deal!  Chronic contraction decreases blood flow, compresses the joint, decreases mobility, increases friction and can lead to arthritis. Practice this a few times a day until you can stand 100% of the time with your quads relaxed.

Susan McLaughlin is a physical therapist who specializes in the management of pelvic floor and orthopedic dysfunctions. She is the owner of ALIGN integration|movement in Salt Lake City, UT.  Helpful tips and other self care strategies can be found at www.alignintegrationandmovement.com.