All Knees Are Not Created Equal

There are two major differences between the male and female knee: 1. the female’s ligaments are softer and thinner, and 2.  a female’s femur bone connects at the knee at a more pronounced slant. There are other physiological differences too, from lower bone density to higher percentage of body fat, but the two I mention above makes the female knee especially vulnerable to excessive high-impact activity and to reactive/sudden pivot-action, a.k.a., masculine training. 

Over the years, I have seen a lot of knee injuries in women, and I suspect it’s from from training like men. The male knee can thrive with an hour of box jumps, basketball drills, and sprints, but the female knee, either right away or over time, gets irritated with such movements, especially done in a hurried or excessive fashion. 

If you are training for sport or performance, like a soccer player or a professional dancer would be, your reason for training is not wellness. Instead it is to win games, or to perform brilliantly. But fitness? The goal of fitness is to feel good, look great and shine bright. It’s to be healthier, to be better.

Ladies, don’t lose sight of your reason for working out. Why put your knees at risk? I promise you, you can be in the best shape of your life without sacrificing your knees. Don’t cross over too far, or stay too long, in “masculine/yang” workouts. Be extra cautious. As Bikram Chourdhury once said, “You can mess with the Gods, but not with the knees.”