Meniscus injuries can have a significant impact on your ability to walk, run and train consistently. Although this injury is less common for runners, understanding management and treatment is essential for long term health and durability.
Knee pain is an injury that many runners struggle with during training, most commonly associated with “runner’s knee” or patellofemoral pain syndrome. Knee injuries that occur from twisting and side to side movements like ACL tears and meniscus injuries are more typically seen in sports with lots of lateral movement like football, basketball and soccer.
Because running only takes place in one plane of motion, we’re less susceptible to meniscus or ligament tears. But sometimes all it takes is a misstep during a pickup game of basketball or an unexpected fall when you aren’t paying attention to strain your knee. If you’re faced with a meniscus injury, what does this mean for your future running?
When untreated, meniscus injuries can lead to chronic pain from osteoarthritis. While some doctors take a more conservative “wait and see” approach when it comes to treating a meniscus tear, advancements in treatment can allow the meniscus to be repaired or replaced, which allows for much better knee function over the long term.
Dr. Kevin Stone on the treatment of meniscus injuries
While I have discussed other common knee injuries on the podcast in the past, meniscus injuries are a new topic. Because this is far from an area of expertise for me, my guest today is a renowned physician known for meniscus treatments. Dr. Kevin Stone graduated from Harvard and the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. His clinical work focuses on keeping people active in the sports they love, and he has served a wide array of athletic groups including the US Ski Team, multiple ballet companies, and the US Olympic Training Center.
In addition to his work as an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Stone is an innovator in the field. Some of his inventions include a glucosamine beverage, a collagen meniscus implant, and the three-tunnel technique of meniscus transplantation, and he has been issued approximately 50 US patents for his work.
If you’re looking for expertise on meniscus injuries, Dr. Stone is at the top of his field. Our discussion today will give you a better understanding of this type of injury, including:
- Understanding the meniscus and what it means to have a meniscus injury
- Are meniscus injuries a concern for runners?
- The most common causes of meniscus injuries
- How to prevent a meniscus injury (it’s probably not what you think!)
- The importance of good mechanics in injury prevention
- Why you need to investigate your doctor’s bias for treatment
- Meniscus injury treatment options and the recovery process
Hopefully you will never be faced with a meniscus injury, but if so this podcast will help you get back on track to running pain free.
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Thank You AG1!
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Thank you MOBO Board!
Invented by renowned physical therapist Jay Dicharry, MOBO helps you stabilize your stance with an innovative rocker board that’s set up on two fins. The design effectively forces you to drive your big toe into the board to improve your stability. I was pretty arrogant going into my first session on the MOBO Board. How hard can it be to balance, right? Well, I was humbled pretty quickly!
Even if you’re a good runner, better balance, stability, and proprioception is going to help you have a more powerful stride and prevent more running injuries. You’ll learn how to improve the efficiency of the kinetic chain from your hip to your big toe. Because as Jay likes to say, it’s not just how strong you are, but how well you use that strength.
I was just at a weekend physical therapy workshop (lol I was the only running coach) and learned how important (and rare) this simple movement is. Save 10% with code STRENGTHRUN10 at checkout at moboboard.com.