If you walk incorrectly, be careful not to hurt your knee joints

With the popularity of the Spring Festival movie "Man Jiang Hong", the "magical" background music (rock version of Henan opera) in the movie has attracted everyone's attention. Many netizens said that walking while listening to this music is like pressing the "fast forward button", which is particularly exciting. "Fast walking" is good, but if you walk too much or in the wrong way, it will cause irreversible damage to your body.

Walking to lose weight hurts your knees

Ms. Lin often sits for a long time and rarely exercises. In the past two years, she found that her weight has been increasing, and a physical examination also found fatty liver. Last October, Ms. Lin started her walking weight loss plan. She chooses to walk when she goes out during the day, and walks briskly at night. After half a month, Ms. Lin has indeed lost a lot of weight, which has strengthened her determination to walk to lose weight. Since then, Ms. Lin has walked more than 20,000 steps every day.

After persisting for more than a month, Ms. Lin, who was becoming slimmer day by day, felt a dull pain in her knee joint. So Ms. Lin went to the hospital for treatment, and the doctor who received her arranged an MRI examination for her. The results showed that there was fluid accumulation in the right knee joint cavity of Ms. Lin, and she suffered from knee synovitis.

Ji Cheng, chief physician of the Department of Orthopedics at Hangzhou First People's Hospital, introduced that knee synovitis is a sterile inflammation, mostly caused by knee sprains and various intra-articular injuries. In addition, excessive exercise, excessive fatigue, and even colds and fevers can also cause knee synovitis. The abnormal function of the synovium will lead to the inability to normally produce and absorb joint fluid, and fluid will accumulate in the knee joint, leading to swelling, pain, and limited movement of the knee joint. Changes in the morphology of the synovium can also damage the cartilage of the knee joint. If not treated in time, it will lead to knee osteoarthritis, and there is a great risk of disability.

Ms. Lin's situation is not an isolated case. After retirement, Aunt Guo joined a group of square dancers. Every day after dinner, she would go to dance for a while. Aunt Guo felt that dancing made her body lighter and more energetic. But unexpectedly, dancing also brought her trouble. Half a year later, Aunt Guo always felt pain in her knees. After examination, the doctor found that there was fluid accumulation in her joints and a torn meniscus.

Scientific exercise to keep healthy

Ji Cheng said that in the orthopedic clinic, almost half of the patients were injured due to seemingly non-intense sports such as walking and square dancing. The middle-aged and elderly people are more likely to have such problems.

"The amount of exercise that each person can bear is different. People who have a habit of exercising can bear a much greater amount of exercise." Ji Cheng explained, "A dancer may not have any problems dancing until he is 80 years old, but for those who did not have a habit of exercising when they were young, suddenly dancing square dance for a long time will put a burden on the exercise system, not to mention that some dance moves are typical "knee-damaging" moves."

The "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents (2022)" recommends that adults take more than 6,000 steps of physical activity every day. Ji Cheng said that it is more appropriate for the elderly to walk 6,000 to 8,000 steps a day. 6,000 steps is equivalent to walking three or four kilometers, which is about 30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise, which can meet the basic exercise needs of the elderly.

Pay attention to these things when exercising

1. When brisk walking, you should first warm up by walking slowly, and then speed up your pace after your limbs have adapted to the pace, in order to reduce sports injuries.

2. Exercise should be gradual, especially for those who have no exercise habits before. Start with a small amount of simple exercises and gradually increase the amount. Some actions that hurt the knees should be avoided as much as possible.

3. You should try to walk on flat ground and avoid going up and down slopes, stairs, etc. to avoid damaging your knee joints.

4. You should choose suitable sports shoes. For example, when running or walking, you can choose sports shoes with soft bottoms and shock-absorbing function to effectively protect the ankles, knees and other joints.

5. In normal times, you can do more quadriceps functional exercises to improve knee stability, delay knee degeneration and wear, and prevent knee cartilage damage.