During the past 15 years in the clinic, I have evaluated thousands of military athletes with knee pain. My exam process for a knee also involves screening the foot/ankle, the hips, and the low back. This is to make sure we address the root cause or the injury/pain/dysfunction and not simply treating the symptoms. 

After evaluating so many knees over the years, there are a few trends that I find more frequently than not. One of those is poorly conditioned feet. 

While many clinicians will then view orthotics as a reasonable treatment, I tend to prefer that we train the body to support itself. 

My rehab programs often encourage training without shoes for this reason. If we can focus on foot contact and weight distribution as we perform our knee rehab it makes it easy to then also improve the foot situation at the same time. 

Adding a heel float into lower body strength movements is one of the simplest ways to do this. 

Check out the video below for the coaching cues that I use to set this up with a split squat. 

And if you are dealing with a nagging knee problem, make sure to check out. my Performance Knee Program which is a 5-Phase progressive rehab framework. We will restore range of motion to the knee, train the hips and feet to support the knee, and then progressively strengthen the knee and eventually progress to plyometrics and impact activity. 

It is the complete rehab framework that I have used with thousands of military athletes over the past decade. 

Learn more about the program HERE

And as always, reach out to me at [email protected] with any questions. 

Yours in health, 

-Jamie