A lot of us suffer with various knee pains. Whether you have a past injury, medical condition or simply want to look after yourself for later life, it is important to take care of the muscles around your knees.
A surprising amount of people experience knee pain where they don’t actually know what it is caused by, but most of the time, it will be a weak muscle that’s meant to be supporting your knee but isn’t.
Let us introduce you to your Vastus Medialis Oblique or VMO. We’ve all got one and it is one of the most crucial muscles in helping support the stability of your knees. The VMO is found on the inside of your thigh, just above your knee caps and chances that unless you are specifically focusing on that muscle, most of us generally don’t use it that much.
Whilst we do not use our VMO much, for many people, the muscle on the opposite side of your knee, the Vastus Lateralis, is often overdeveloped. If this is the case, this could be the cause of knee pain you are experiencing as your knee is actually being pulled across by the Vastus Lateralis because the VMO muscle is not strong enough to support the knee properly, giving you that nasty knee pain.
How can I strengthen my VMO?
Luckily, there is one exercise in particular that you can do from home to specifically help strengthen your VMO.
Enter VMO raises! By spending just a few minutes each day doing these raises, you will begin to notice that you VMO muscles will begin to work a lot more than they used to, which is exactly what we are aiming for in order to increase the strength and the size of your VMO to counter any muscle imbalances in your knees.
In order to perform a VMO leg raise, begin sitting on the floor with your legs straight out in front of you. Point your toes out 15 degrees and slowly raise your foot. Taking a few seconds down each time. In order to progress this, do not allow your foot to touch the floor at the bottom.
So, by simply increasing the strength on your VMO, you’re going to be holding your knee in the correct position, which can help reduce that everyday knee pain or even make it completely disappear!