[이데일리 이순용 기자] A (female, 29), an office worker, started going to the gym with her friends last month to challenge body profile photography before turning 30. In order to meet her pre-booked studio body profile shooting schedule, Mr. A, who exercised at the gym every day, ignored it as it was due to the fact that her knee had been hurting for a while, but it was because she was not exercising. However, she said last week that her knee pain was so severe that it was difficult for her to walk properly. Mr. A visited a nearby orthopedic surgeon and was diagnosed with tendinitis, halting her exercise and receiving treatment.
With the recent trend of body profiles taking pictures of their own healthy bodies, centering on the MZ generation, the number of people who enjoy dieting and exercising to make muscles beautiful has increased rapidly. You can easily access the exercise method through videos provided by YouTube or IPTV, so there are many cases where you can watch the videos yourself at home or at the gym without the help of experts. If you are a beginner in exercise, you mainly do bare body exercises, but squats and lunges are bare body exercises you can’t miss.
The squat is an exercise that repeats sitting and standing until the thigh is level with the knee, and it is the most basic lower body exercise. It is effective in developing lower body muscles by training the muscles of the lower back, buttocks, thighs, and calves. Lunges repeat sitting and standing with your legs apart about 1 meter from front to back.
The problem is that doing these exercises for a long time in the wrong position can damage the knee joint. When performing a squat or lunge position, the knee is naturally bent. At this time, if the knee is bent forward or inward than the toe, excessive weight is placed on the knee and damage to the knee occurs.
Knee injuries due to exercise vary from minor injuries such as tendonitis, which is an inflammation of the tendons or pain caused by friction between the patella and femur when moving the knee, to cruciate ligament damage, meniscus damage, collateral ligament damage, etc. During the lunge movement, special attention should be paid to damage to the articular cartilage.
The articular cartilage, which is covered with a 3 to 4 mm thick white smooth tissue in the area forming the femur and tibia joint in the knee joint, distributes the force applied to the joint covered by the cartilage to minimize frictional force. Such cartilage can be damaged due to various complex causes such as disease, trauma, aging, etc., but most of the damage occurs due to repeated overload or sudden impact.
There is no pain or inflammation in cartilage because there is no nerve or blood vessel tissue, but when the lesion progresses to surrounding tissues, swelling or pain is felt due to inflammation. Cartilage damage can be diagnosed through imaging tests such as X-rays and MRI scans along with symptoms. If the damage or inflammation of the knee joint is mild, non-surgical treatments such as drug therapy, physical therapy, and activity restriction are performed. Depending on the symptoms, surgery using arthroscopy may be considered.
Seo Jin-hyeok, head of the Joint Center at Daedong Hospital, said, “Knee pain is known to occur naturally with age, but in fact, knee pain is the most common symptom in orthopedic surgery, and recently many young people visit the hospital due to the development of leisure life.” If symptoms such as knee pain, swelling, or restriction of movement appear, you should rest sufficiently. If the pain persists, paste or folk remedies are often applied. It is important,” he advised.
In order to prevent knee damage during exercise, it is important for beginners to learn the correct posture and exercise method from an expert until they get used to the movement rather than watching the video and doing it on their own. Also, when performing squats or lunges, it is better to do it in front of a mirror so that you can see yourself as accurate posture is important. After recognizing which part gives the stimulus point, it should be performed. If stimulation is felt in other parts, it is necessary to check whether the posture is incorrect.
In particular, be careful that the front knee does not protrude more than the toe, and in the case of a lunge, you need to be more careful because the weight is put on one leg. If you forcefully do an exercise without lower body muscle strength, it can adversely affect it.
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