2/5/07- Condylar Balance- Kinesiology

Michelle Black

2/5/07

Kinesiology

Journal #2: Condylar Balance

Image: (#2a and b, Page 163) A. Standing: Distribute weight equally on both legs. Visualize the femoral condyles of both femurs sitting on their respective menisci and tibial condyles. Imagine that both femoral condyles rest equally on their tibial condyles. Visualize the vertical ground reaction force vector located between the condyles.

            B. Balancing condylar tire pressure (standing): If you sense that there is too much weight on the lateral condyles, visualize them as tires that are being inflated. Inflate the lateral tire until it feels like more weight has been shifted to the medial condyle. If it feels like there is too much weight on the medial condyles, inflate that tire and visualize the weight shifting over to the lateral condyles.

As I began by being more aware of my knees, I felt that my medial condyle floated easily on my knee. It was as though juices were flowing through, and allowed me to feel quite a bit more lifted off of my knee. It was easier to see my tibia as hanging from the rest of my body rather than my tibia holding the rest of my body up. It was quite invigorating. The same thing happened as I tried this in walking. Working out in the morning got a little bit easier as I felt less resistance from gravity.

As nice as it was to feel this in my medial condyle, I felt nothing on my lateral condyle. I couldn’t get into my lateral condyle. My brain had never entered my lateral condyle before, and was resisting me. At first, I didn’t know what to make of it. The second half of the image helped me to pinpoint why I perhaps couldn’t feel the liquid-like feeling I had felt in my medial condyle. I was holding more weight over my lateral condyle.

This must be a bad habit of mine. I don’t know if holding more weight over my lateral condyle is something I have trained myself to do, or if I’ve always done it this way. It took me a while to be able to control the feeling of where my lateral condyle even was.

I haven’t yet been able to get this image into my body while in movement, at least for the lateral condyle. I really have to concentrate just while standing to get my lateral tire pumped up with more air. I am able to be aware of, and feel lifted in my medial condyle while dancing. I have had knee problems in the past that seem to come up every now and then, and I think that I worry about them especially while I’m moving. With this image in my head, I felt that I didn’t have to worry quite as much about it, because my knees magically didn’t have to hold as much weight.

At the same time, though, my lateral condyle area on my right knee has developed a slight problem over the past week. I wonder if I concentrated so much on lifting my medial condyles without being able to focus on the lateral condyles that I subconsciously lifted just in the medial, and put even more pressure on the lateral. Or it could be muscles being too tight. I can’t tell at this point.