In this video, I'm going to be answering a question that I got from one of our subscribers
as a comment on one of our other videos and they asked “Should I be using
a knee brace like this one when I exercise?” My name is Dr. David Middaugh, I'm a specialist
physical therapist. And on this channel, we help people stay healthy, active and mobile
while avoiding unnecessary surgery, injections and pain medications. Please consider subscribing
to this channel so that you don't miss out on any of the helpful videos we post every week.
So to answer the question, should I be using a knee brace? When I exercise? The answer is
it depends. Sometimes it's appropriate to use a knee brace. Other times it's not. And it's
not a matter of comfort, because it's always going to be uncomfortable to wear a knee brace.
As far as it's sliding down your leg and possibly pinching the back of your knee. It might feel more
comfortable in that your knee might hurt less. But it's always troubled to be sliding that
knee brace up your leg as you're moving more throughout your workout. So to give you some
clarity on whether or not you should be using your knee brace, is you have to think about what
point in your knee problem are you if you just got hurt or you just began to have knee pain,
and you found out that wearing a knee brace helps you to feel better, then you absolutely should be
wearing a knee brace while you're exercising. You should allow yourself to heal all the way.
Sometimes that takes a few days to a few weeks, depending on your injury type what
was what's going on. And as long as you can begin to wean yourself out of that knee brace
and you feel better as you do so then you're good to eventually get rid of the knee brace.
If you have a more chronic knee problem like this has been going on for months, or even years or
decades, then you're going to be in a different situation, there's likely an underlying root
problem that led to your chronic knee problem. And that needs to be addressed in order for you to
successfully exercise without pain in your knee. Now if you've been wearing a knee brace like this,
or even a sleeve that doesn't have you know the brackets one has a metal brackets and protects
you to bend correctly. If you no matter the type of knee brace you're wearing if you've
got chronic knee pain, and you found that it feels better to wear the brace when you exercise,
then continue to do so but understand that you have got to be fixing the underlying
root problem for your knee issue, in order to eventually wean out of worrying the knee brace.
Now for most people, they usually have weak glute muscles, weak butt muscles, and their quad muscles
in the front of their thighs are overdeveloped. And that's what's causing excessive compression
at the front of the knee joints. And that's irritating the cartilage or damaging the meniscus.
And that's what sets up that chronic knee problem. And if you're taking care of it, you're doing
treatments or you're doing exercises to get stronger in the glutes or the right muscles.
Depending on your specific situation. And you felt more comfortable outside the knee brace as
time has gone on, then you can begin to look at times where you can exercise without the brace.
But if you're still not sure what's going on, you don't have good control, you don't have a handle
on improvements in your knee problem, then you might want to stay in the brace a bit longer
until you do so be sure to wash your brace. If you're exercising, you're getting a little
sweaty, these things can be a little smelly, I would wash it every day or every couple of
days that you have it on depending on how much you sweat and the type of weather the trade. If it's
hotter, you're going to sweat more of course, you don't want to watch that more often. And I would
even get a couple of races, maybe one that's just for exercise, and one that you might wear outside
of the gym or outside of your exercise time. And if you're thinking about getting a brace
and you don't know which one to get for your specific knee problem,
I've linked the video in the description below that tells you how to shop for a knee brace
depending on your specific knee problem. And just to recap what I said here, if you have a more
acute injury, meaning you just started having knee pain within the past few weeks at most,
and you found that wearing a knee brace helps you out,
then you can begin to gradually wean out of it. I f as long as you feel comfortable to exercise with
the knee brace. If that's you've been doing, then you need to start to get yourself out of the knee
brace. But what I didn't mention earlier is the harm in staying in the knee brace for too long
is that it can change the way that your knee joint moves, it can change the way that your
overall movements occur. And certain muscles might adapt to using the brace
which could make other muscles weaker, and it could just cause problems in the long term.
So you only want to really use this knee brace at the beginning of an injury. Ideally, if you just
got hurt or started to have knee problems, you've got to eventually get off the knee brace
and learn how to exercise without the knee brace so you can get back to normal again.
And then if you've got more chronic knee pain if you've had this problem for months,
or years or decades and you've been wearing a knee brace to get relief in your knee problem whenever
you go exercise, you should not get out of the knee brace until you have a successful plan.
You're seeing some improvements in your problem because you're addressing the root problem,
then you can constantly get to the point where you're weaning yourself
out of your knee brace and not relying it, relying on it for the long term.
Again, it is dangerous even in that situation to rely on the knee brace for the long term.
If you feel like you've been wearing a knee brace for months for years and you're not really sure
when you're supposed to get out of it or you're not sure if you're improving or knots,
I would highly recommend going to go visit an expert nearby or watching more videos to
learn more about how to treat your own knee problem and get improvements in your knee
so that you can fix the problem for the long term. I've linked a playlist in the description that has
all of our YouTube videos before knee problems and their specific knee problems like knee meniscus
issues knee arthritis problems and more down links down in the description below. So go check
those out. If this video was helpful for you, give us a thumbs up and drop a comment below
if you've got any questions and please consider subscribing to our channel we make videos focused
on helping people stay healthy, active and mobile while avoiding unnecessary surgeries.
injections and medications. We'll see in the next video guys. Bye.