What is this annoying bump on my knee?

Every time I see a female star's legs, I envy them - how come they are so long, so thin, and so straight? I look down at my own legs. I won't mention their length and thickness, but why are the two bulges at the knees so annoying?

I don't have knock-knees, but there are two big lumps at my knees that won't go down no matter how thin or how much I exercise. It's OK when I wear pants to cover my legs, but once I expose my legs, these two big lumps will make my legs look particularly crooked. It's said that "thick legs are not the point, but crooked legs are the most terrible thing", what exactly is this annoying bulge at the knees?

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Let me first tell you something that goes against common sense - normal legs are definitely not as straight as those in photos of female celebrities.

It is normal for legs to be crooked. Due to the existence of the pelvis, there is a natural angle between our thighs and calves, and this angle is called the pelvic Q angle. Generally speaking, the wider the pelvis, the larger the pelvic Q angle, and the larger the pelvic Q angle, the more "crimped" the legs will appear.

You may find that men are more likely to have straight legs than women - this is because men's pelvises are narrower than women's, and the corresponding pelvic Q angle is also smaller, so their legs will naturally appear straighter. In general, women's pelvises are wider than men's, with a pelvic Q angle between 11 and 20 degrees, while men's pelvic Q angles are between 8 and 14 degrees, which makes women's legs, especially the knees, more likely to appear "protruding".

So what is the bulge on the inside of the knee? In fact, the answer is obvious: it is our thigh bone!

This location is called the medial epicondyle of the femur, and it is part of our thigh bone. So when we reach out and touch the bulge on our knee, we always feel that it is very hard - it is a bone, how can it not be hard! As a normal physiological structure, it should be here, and it should be so hard to support our lower body.

But at this point, some people may wonder - since everyone has this structure, why do other people's knee bulges look much smaller than mine?

On the one hand, everyone's skeleton structure is different. On the other hand, the distribution of body muscle and fat will also have a great impact on the external shape of the legs, and the distribution of muscle and fat accumulation is different for each of us.

If a woman with a large pelvic angle has a lot of fat accumulated in the buttocks and thighs, her legs will naturally appear to be more crooked visually. However, such legs are actually normal and there is no need to worry.

As long as we are in a static and natural standing position with our shin bones perpendicular to the ground and our feet (or ankles) and knees touching each other, we are healthy.

Of course, it is understandable to pursue better visual effects on the basis of health. Scientific leg training can make your legs more beautiful and healthier visually.

For example, strengthening the adductor muscles appropriately can make the line from the thigh root to the knee smoother, making the legs appear straighter. Well-developed adductor muscles can not only make the "knee bulge" less obvious visually, but also help adduct the femur, and solve the problem of false hip width in a relatively neutral position.

It is not difficult to train the adductor muscles. When sitting at your workstation, you can squeeze your thighs towards the midline from time to time. In this process, you can consciously activate the adductor muscles and feel the force of the muscles. If you want a more obvious training effect, you can also clamp a yoga ball or a book between your knees and use the force to squeeze it to pieces - this is static resistance training for the adductor muscles. Anyone who has practiced it knows how exciting it is.

In addition, improving the problem of arch collapse can also make the legs "straighter". The ankle joint, knee joint, and hip joint are the key to influencing each other. If any joint is crooked, it will affect the state of other joints. The arch collapse will cause the ankle joint to be crooked. Once the ankle joint is crooked, the biological force line of the entire lower limb will be crooked. When the force line is crooked, the distribution of muscles and fat will be affected over time. Because the calf exerts force on the outside when walking, the calf will develop more and more laterally as you walk, and the leg will appear crooked.

So how do you exercise your arches? It's also very simple. Just practice using your toes to hold the arches. When you are at home, you can first practice using your toes to hold a towel to improve the flexibility of your toes; then curl your toes in the opposite direction to promote the contraction of the plantar fascia, and finally do one-legged standing and leg raising to exercise your core strength and reduce the pressure on the arches of your feet.

Some postural defects can cause our legs to be less straight than they naturally are. Through scientific training, we can correct these postural problems and return our legs to their natural state.

But even if the legs are trained in this way, they rarely reach the comic legs we see on the screen. After all, many of the "straight legs" we see on the screen are fake. Whether it is the stars on TV or the Internet celebrities in short videos, they are all Photoshopped and everyone says it is good. When we look at the unPhotoshopped photos of celebrities, we will find that the shape of the stars' legs is actually the same as ours, not so straight, but they have a strong makeup, lighting and post-production team, which can correct some details that do not conform to the template beauty.

It is everyone's nature to pursue beauty, but it is really unnecessary to fall into unnecessary anxiety or even a vicious circle of over-blaming yourself on this road.

Being healthy and confident is the most beautiful.

Author: Hydra

Reviewer: Ji Gang, deputy chief physician of orthopedics, the First Hospital of Hebei Medical University

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