Anyone here over 40 who has never had problems with their knees due to playing badminton? Many of the oldies I know have knee problems and I was wondering how common this is with badminton players. Is it possible to play to say 60 years old and not have any knee problems? Or are knee problems just something you just have to deal with because of all the stresses of jumping, twisting and lunging?
It is possible that people dont get knee injurys at the late stages of life. But they are very common injuries with badminton. Just make sure you always stretch and warmup properly, then always warm down properly. Keep healthy and keep your body conditioned and you may be able to avoid the injury Everyone is different.
Im not in the 40+ category but Im in tune with general health practices. With any activity there are going to be stresses on your body, and those are inevitable. Our bodies simply werent built to last. That doesnt mean there arent things you can do to help minimize these things. First would be prevention. Good footwork definitely helps, but also use the cloth knee braces. They help keep your joints aligned as they're supposed to be. Stretch and warm up properly before you play. Badminton is rather high impact from all the jumping and often violent swings/wrist snap of the racket. The other thing is use anti inflammatory supplements such as fish oil and ice yourself down after a hard work out. Icing doesnt always mean injury, but your joints, muscles, tendons and ligaments will be inflamed and minimizing that reduces the chance of long term damage.
Are knee problems inevitable? YES, but there are ways to slow down the problem or protect your knee joint. The older you get, the longer it takes for inflammation to heal after jumping and hard run & twisting. Stretch...Stretch...Stretch......warm-up: If you have Bally member, steam room and cold ice dip will HELP Recovery Time. As you know, We are badminton ADDICT, we will play till We drop or cannot walk anymore. I remember twisting my ankle 2 months ago during a game, guess what, I was still running around...then after the game, adrenaline drop, and the next morning , I can hardly walk on it for a day. Take a few days off folks......don't try to be superman......When your Body till you it time to STOP...it doesn't lie to YOU. Just don't lie to yourself that your OK when your limping around the courts. As for me, I wear lots of protection GEAR on my Rt. knee, since I have NO ligaments-Torn ACL 15 yrs ago. Wear ankle support--That will help a lots since your shoe get loose in the game and twisting ankle is inevitable. Remember to use Chinese HOT OIL on your knee before and after ....and eat YOUR proteins--to help your body repair muscle tissues. The best is drink a protein shake before and after.....that will reduce MUSCLE ache and cramp......Badminton is an expensive Sports: It like preparing your sport cars going for a RACE...You need to keep up the tunning.....after eVery RACE...Your body is a machine--You want to perform it best---treat it like your sport CAR: You don't want to RACE your sport car on a TRACK when Your Tires are wear-out or w/out Good OIL engine & gAS.......Your body is the same: It just pure LOGIC folks......Good LUCK........
There are also many oldies who have knee problems and didn't do much exercise. Knee problems are part and parcel of most active sports because they take the strain of your body weight.
40+ I am 40+ and have been playing for the past 5 to 6 years after a lapse of about 15 years. Recently for the past 3 months, my right knee started to ache and have "crack" sound everytime I bend them. I am now on glucosamine and started to play with a knee guard. Will this help? Anyone else can offer more advice and preventive measures?
Good to know that you concern knee problem. When the injury occurred, it already occurred and couldn't be reversed. Let me share my story. I've just discharged from hospital yesterday after ACL reconstruction. The process was very painful and I need to face it for 9 more months onward. I previously did not have knee pain but just "click" sound when I squat every time for about a year. I thought it was common due to degeneration of soft tissue and didn't wear any knee brace. My knee injured suddenly when I was playing a single tournament at the end of April, the image was very similar to how Julia Wong got her injury during Sudirman Cup 2009, LS with Yap Pui Yin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHfR2kPtyZs . We both were suffered from tear of ACL & MCL. The cost is very big, included no badimnton for 1 year, sick leave from work for 1 month post injury and about 2 months post operation, couldn't drive, couldn't go to trip, expensive (if do the surgery in private hospital), received Physiotherapy 2-3 times/week (very boring & time-consuming), very painful, swelling, scarring, getting fat, change of lifestyle to sedentary leisure activities for a period of time, hesitation in sport in future, and so on. To review my injury, I played 3 nights badminton per week in the past, 2-3 hrs each, a badminton lover like you, seldom to do gym, seldom to play single but unfortunately played single tournament this time, not enough rest, stressful work. I highly recommend you to consult your physician if knee pain persisited. Do gym at least one time per week, esp. strengthing of hamstring. Do other exercises as well, e.g. cycling, jogging or swimming to balance other muscle. Now, I walked with 2 elbow crutches, partial weight bearing for 4 weeks in initiatal stage due to my MCL didn't healed well, my companion are:
Make sure you start bending your knee right away....You don't want scar tissue to build up in your knee, and then you will have a tough time and longer recovery time. Make pain your friend with acL INJURY, you will need it to go thru this tough time to maintain your muscle mass in quadriceps or else it just melt away Quickly, i advise do whatever it take to bring your knee in motion daily and keep exercise. Good LUCK.........I torn everything in me knee 15yrs ago....so I know this is tough time and nightmare. I am playing Badminton w/out ACL right now. but i wear lots of protective gear, and doctor told me 15 yrs ago that I will never be able to run and play sports again.....yeah right!!!! it YOU....Will & Power.....
Get well soon... ..to AChan! Ouch and sorry to hear abt your injury and surgery. Looking at the 1st pic already put a cringe on my face.:crying: Hope you'll have a full & speedy recovery. And you'll get a chance to play on the badminton court, again! Thanks to all who shared the prevention tips for our knees!
OMG! I also play 3 times a week, but I play more than 3 hrs. I stopped going to the gym. I don't do other exercises. Thank you very much for sharing your story. I will try other activities besides badminton. I will also be more careful.
SuperBird, yes, I need to accept "make pain be my friend" :crying:, very painful in these days when I tried to keep range of knee 0-90 degree. I heard your story in other posts, and had saw your youtube video (correct me if I am wrong), play MS in the middle of the video, with braces on both knee. You played well. You are very brave, it is a very hard time without both ACL & PCL. Thanks for your encouragement. When I got the injury few months ago, the doctor asked me to choose whether to do the reconstruction. Athought my MRI report showed that my ACL could not be found and suggestive total rupture, he said the scaring of it may also function, no need to do the surgery if I continuously to do the hamstring strengthening exercise. The ideal strength of quadriceps vs. hamstring is to reach 100 vs. 100, but 100 vs. 80 is also acceptable. Before I do the surgery, the surgeon told me that my knee is not very loose, apart from the effort I made in the quadriceps and hamstring strengthening, in arthroscopy findings report, my ACL is almost complete tear, leaving a small bunch of scarring attached to PCL. I am pleased to know that the scarring is helpful to my knee. Good to know that you do regular strengthening exercise to you thigh muscle. I found some research that the ACL brace is not useful in protecting ones from injury for people with or without doing the reconstruction, it is only a sense of security. The brace does not provide enough strength to your knee when the dislocation happened. In constrast, the brace affects ones proprioception sense to protect the knee. That's mean your knee muscle are not sensitive enough to provide support for sprain prevention. I clarified this with my physician, he recommended to keep the strength and off the brace when exercise. One of my colleague who plays football regularly, his ACL was torn few years ago, and suffered from knee injury about once per year regularly, he also took the advices from the physician, do strenghtening exercise and off the brace when play football, he was able to keep injury-free for one and a half year up till now. For your consideration please.
TCM and knee pain Recently I was at a TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) talk on knee pain and was reminded that ageing will continue to assault us at the physical level and more so if we are into sports, especially I would say if we are badminton fanatics! With so much movement on our legs joints and our knees in a relatively short time, no wonder badminton players suffer the most on their knees through wear and tear in particular! The heavier you are, the greater burden on your knees and other leg joints. While good footwork can help in reducing injuries to the legs and warming up exercises and gym work may also help, the TCM doctor emphasized more on prevention. You need to be in good physical condition and a regular intake of the right type of Chinese herbs to fortify your organs such as the kidneys, spleen, lungs and heart is necessary. The TCM doctor also talked briefly about 'chi' (energy flow) and 'meridien points or pathways for chi to flow' (twelve of them?) and how exercises such as 'qigong' can help to generate a free flow of our chi. She then prescribed the Chinese herbs to boil (for at least 2 hours) for "strengthening" the knees and suggested the treatment of acupunture (needles) at four 'meridien points' in front and at the back of the knee area to release blockages and allow 'chi' to flow again freely. It is when blockages start to accumulate that we begin to experience problems to our health, including knee pains and injuries thereafter. For practical purposes she suggested that sports people should not take a shower immediately after a game when the skin pores are still open and it is bad for the cold to enter the pores that could cause health problems later. Never sleep on a bare floor without a mattress to prevent the cold from entering your body, neither should you sleep in a very cold air conditioned room without protecting your body warmth. For knee pains, don't expose your knees to the cold, wear long pants instead of shorts. And get medical attention as soon as problems arise, such as acupunture treatment and Chinese herbs to fortify your body (kidneys for knee pains). Wearing a good knee guard can also help. Some useful links on the subject: TCM and knee injury: http://www.tcmworld.org/heal_with_tcm/knee_injury/ TCM in general: http://www.motleyhealth.com/eastern_health_and_fitness/traditional-chinese-medicine "Traditional Chinese Medicine believes that the body has twelve vital organs, which are all connected via the meridians (or energy channels). Chi flows through the channels to vitalize the organs of the body and it effects the jing, shen and consciousness. If the flow of chi is blocked it can impact on the physical and mental wellbeing of the individual. Different external factors can affect the flow of chi in different ways, and therefore have different affects on the body. Extreme temperatures can interfere with bodily function, as can irregular diet, sleeping patterns and other lifestyle factors. Chi is associated with each organ, and deficiencies and excesses of chi can both have negative impacts on health. Generally if an organ is deficient it leads to a weakness, such as a deficiency of chi in the spleen can lead to digestive problems, indigestion and diarrhea. Excess of chi in the liver can make a person more aggressive, irritable, and often results in them having a slightly higher than average body temperature. In summary, traditional Chinese medicine studies the flow of energy in the human body, and how it affects the different organs through the interaction of those organs with each other, and with the different forms of chi. Some chi is stored within the body since birth (yuan, congenital), some chi formed from what we consume (ying, nutritative), some chi defends the body (wei, defensive) and some forms within the chest by combining the bodies different chi’s with breath (zong, gathering)." May I wish AChan a speedy recovery.
Hi Loh, thanks for sharing the information and links. Other good threads to read up on http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5674 and http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19960&highlight=knee There are a lot good information in there for others to read up on too, especially on the intake of glucosamine, calcium and chrondroitin. In regards to strengthening your leg muscles and lower body, have a look at the following articles from www.t-nation.com. Please be aware that it may not be safe to view at work (NSFW). http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_..._ankle_paradox_building_indestructible_ankles http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_...formance_repair/18_tips_for_bulletproof_knees Please do read through that website for other articles. IMHO, it is a top notch web site. Justin
Funnily I am in the EXACT situation as u are. Like everything u say above fits me. One caution about the knee guard. Use one with a hole for the Patella (knee cap). I did the mistake of using a full guard and the cartilage under the Patella was thinned due to the force of the knee guard pressing in on it. Glucosamine and Chondroitin at 500mg/300mg are maintenance doses. Right now I am taking 2000mg G (1000mg morning, 500mg midday meal and 500mg late pm) and 600mg Chondroitin. + I ordered shark cartilage and Collagen caps which I have not started on yet. I actually started wearing a BRACE last week to ease the weight on the knee when I need to stand for more than 1/2hr. It really helps. I stopped playing for the moment.:crying::crying::crying:
too be honest, good footwork probably helps more than anything else mentioned so far. If you move with the same fluidity and ease as pro level badminton players, I very much doubt you'll get knee problems even at 40+. My opinion on this comes from seeing the majority of older players in my club play with "unorthodox" or "untaught" footwork, and hearing them complain of problems. The few exceptions that have obviously been taught proper footwork have no such problems and defy the norm by playing in singles tournaments, something their peers envy. All this coming from a junior player who hopes to not have any injuries for the next few decades at least
I think the knee is a very nice biomechanical structure designed by mother nature. Unfortunately, it is also complicated. It is chiefly held in place by the 4 ligaments and the Patella/Quadriceps tendon. The meniscus/ariticular cartilage sits in a synovial fluid that basically allows movement with very little friction. Aeging affects the collagen fibers, which make it more stiff due to accumulation of collagen fibrosis over time. Cartilage and ligaments are chiefly made up of collagen. Collagen consist of 60% water. Therefore, try this-according to NIAMS (niams.nih.gov) Range-of-motion exercises to help maintain normal joint movement and relieve stiffness. Strengthening exercises to help keep or increase muscle strength. Keeping muscles strong with exercises – such as walking up stairs, doing leg lifts or dips, or riding a stationary bicycle – helps support and protect the knee. Aerobic or endurance exercises to improve function of the heart and circulation and to help control weight. Weight control can be important to people who have arthritis because extra weight puts pressure on many joints. Some studies show that aerobic exercise can reduce inflammation in some joints. Also avoid alcohol/smoking as it can dehydrate your joints.
Extract from a 'Traditional Chinese Medicine' explanatory article: ------------------------------------- Knee Injury It's important to know that one fundamental principle in the philosophy of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) holds that everything that happens on the outside of the body in terms of damage or injury reflects an imbalance on the inside. In the case of knee difficulties, the knees represent the Kidney (they are associated with this organ, according to Five-Element theory). This symptom or sign on the outside of your body indicates that you have a Kidney function disorder and a Kidney energy deficiency. ------------------------------------- Er, the knees represent the kidneys? A bad knee means one has renal impairment? I am NOT going to debate the merits of such 'medical' systems here!
I have started on a series of exercise detailed by my physio to reinforce the muscles and ligaments holding the knee. It looks like it is working as combined with the brace/supplements/rest and medication the pain has subsided over 50% so far.
