Stretches and exercises specific for drop knees

[aikibujin]

I've posted this on MP before, but didn't really get a lot of useful replies. So I'm trying my luck here as well.

I was working out the beta on a fairly steep route more than a week ago. When all else failed, in desperation I tried a very high drop knee, basically stepping my feet to almost waist level then twisting into a drop knee.



Long story short, that move hurt my right knee a little. When I tried a different route on the same day that involved a lot of heel hooking, I felt a slight pain on the inside of my right knee. In the few days after, I felt the same pain when walking up or down stairs. More than a week later, the pain is pretty much all gone, but I'm wondering if there are any exercises or stretches I can do to prevent injuries like this in the future?

The things I already do:
* yoga - I do yoga at least once a week as a way to maintain general flexibility.
* pistol squat - I do this as part of my supplemental exercises, on a balance pod. I thought this is a good way to strengthen balancing muscles in the leg.
* hurdler stretch - there are some mixed views on this particular stretch. Some say it's actually bad for the knee, so I only do it very gently.

[MarkAnderson]

I don't have anything to offer in terms of stretches or exercises, but I do have some thoughts on avoiding this type of injury through technique.

It seems to me that the cause of these types of injuries is not so much the drop knee position itself, but rather the motion (most) climbers go through to get into the drop knee. That is, most climbers place their foot on the hold with the knee pointed up (as you would for any frog-style/front step), then they (often viciously) rotate their knee into the wall, until it's pointing down. I think that rotation, twisting all those ligaments while they're under tension, is the source of the problem. Sometimes this is compounded by then sitting on the foot of the dropped knee. So now you're twisting the shit out of the ligaments to pre-tension them, before stretching them to the limit of their range of motion under a significant load.

An alternative is to rotate your knee into position before placing your foot on the rock. This eliminates much of the strain in my experience. However, it may not feel quite as secure or "locked in", since you don't have all that torque forcing your foot into the hold. I think that is largely mental and can be overcome by paying attention and pushing harder with your foot. Also, it's often harder to place your foot on the wall with your knee pointing down--you typically have to be in a stance that allows you to move your leg statically, which is not always the case, especially in big stems. And, most people are probably better at placing feet accurately in a front step than in a backstep, so some may find it more difficult to accurately place their foot on small holds with the knee pre-dropped.

[jetjackson]

Some good advice there, going to send this to my climbing buddy, who dislocated his knee cap doing a drop knee at Rifle a few weeks ago.

[jetjackson]

So I did this on my warmup boulder ladder last night. Was in a dihedral with a right drop knee, and had to left foot to left hand match on a hold about the same height to my left - it wasn't a harsh drop into the drop knee, but I think I overstretched it while pulling the hand foot match on the left. Kind of felt a little sore coming off the boulder. I went to do route intervals on an auto-belay, and after about 10 minutes the right knee became a bit sore and I decided to call it quits on the session. It was a little painful this morning waking up, and I can't walk fast and have to take it easy on stairs - no swelling or anything though.

Hopefully it clears up in 2-3 weeks like yours did - I'm headed to the Red for Thanksgiving, and I have a Maple Trip planned for next weekend. Looks like I'll be doing overhanging jug hauls!