With more and more people working from home, taking care of your health is as important as ever. On average, 1 in 4 adults struggle with knee pain, and with remote work becoming more popular that number is trending up.
Discover how to prevent knee pain when working from home with expert advice from our physical therapy team.
Why Is My Knee Pain Getting Worse When Working From Home?
If you are suffering with knee pain, you might be wondering how is working from home causing more knee pain, or whether it’s unrelated?
Well working from home often leads to a huge contributing factor of knee pain – Inactivity.
Did you know that inactivity is actually hard on your knees? It can lead to weakened knees, increased risk of arthritis, and increased the risk for osteoporosis.
Luckily there are some simple, easy things you can implement to stay active, even while working from home (or from your work desk!) No matter where you spend your 8-5, you can start on these quick tips to make sure you prevent knee pain in the future.
How To Prevent Knee Pain When Working From Home – Light Stretches
To prevent knee pain when working from home, the best (and easiest way) to ensure your knees aren’t inactive is to, well, be active!
You can do some light stretching throughout the day to relax your muscles and ease your tension. You can also do some strengthening leg exercises such as knee lifts, calf raises, and knee curls. See below for a more thorough explanation of these simple exercise that have worked really well for our knee pain patients.
Knee Lifts: Stand straight and lift your left knee to hip height, lower your knee and repeat with the right knee. Alternate knees and continue for a few minutes.
Calf Raises: Stand straight and and push up on the balls of your feet until you’re almost on your tippy-toes, hold for 3 seconds then lower your feet all the way back down so they’re flat on the floor. Repeat.
Knee Curls: Stand straight, bend your left leg back and hold your foot with your left hand, you’ll feel the stretch in your thighs. Lower your left and repeat with the other side.
How To Prevent Knee Pain When Working From Home – A Better Work Chair
Sitting for long periods of time can cause stress on your knees, especially the cartilage surface. The more your knee is constricted, the more stiffness and soreness you’re exposing yourself to.
Luckily, an easy way to bypass this is to make sure you have a good work chair. You’ll need to look for one that has an adjustable height and that’ll allow you to move or flex your knee more often. Also look for a chair that will give you better posture.
How To Prevent Knee Pain When Working From Home – Take A Break
The easiest solution to ensure you’re moving about is to take intentional breaks throughout your day.
Set a time every hour and stand and walk around for a bit.
It doesn’t have to be a long break, a minute at most will create a big difference in your overall routine.
Taking this simple measure will not only make a difference when it comes to preventing knee pain when working from home, but on your overall health.
How To Prevent Knee Pain When Working From Home – See Your Physical Therapist If Pain Persists
Even though we can make all the correct changes on our own, sometimes our knee pain will continue to bother us.
Or you could have been taking all the preventative measures and still end up with pain.
Don’t allow yourself to be discouraged or try to fix the problem on your own!
At Kriz Physical Therapy, P.A., we provide expert medical advice and premier physical therapy services to quickly ease your knee pain so it’s not something you have to put up with or lead you to regular use of painkillers.
Call our offices today at 239-992-6700 to schedule an appointment or arrange a free discovery visit where you can speak to a member of the team and learn whether physical therapy is the right solution for you.
We also have other free resources if you are suffering with annoying knee pain below:
- Grab a copy of our free downloadable knee pain report for simple, but powerful tips that have made a massive difference for our physical therapy patients.
- Read our blog about How To Cope With Pain While Sitting and Are Your Shoes Causing Your Ankle Pain?
- Head to our Kriz Therapy Facebook Pageor Kriz Therapy Instagram Page
