Circulation + Communication
This week we discuss how sensory awareness, circulation, and movement work together to support healthy knees as we age.
Are your knees in need of better communication?
When our knees become stiff, achy, or less reliable, we often blame aging, worn cartilage, or weak muscles. And while structural changes certainly occur as we age, there's another part of knee health we rarely discuss: how well our knees communicate with our brain.
Your knees are equipped with sensory receptors in the surrounding skin, muscles, tendons, and joint tissues. These provide information about position, movement, and loading. Your brain uses this information to coordinate everything from walking and climbing stairs to recovering your balance. Research suggests that aging and conditions such as knee osteoarthritis can influence proprioception, movement coordination, and sensory processing. But these systems also retain some capacity to adapt through training.
Interestingly, classical Chinese Medicine describes the knees as the "storehouse of the sinews" (膝者，筋之府) in the Huangdi Neijing Suwen, Chapter 17. The Liver is traditionally associated with nourishing the sinews and supporting the free movement of Qi and Blood. Modern physiology gives us a different explanation, involving sensory feedback, blood supply to living tissues, joint-fluid exchange, and muscular coordination. These aren't identical systems, but both perspectives encourage us to consider knee health beyond the joint's structure alone.
Knees over toes
Interestingly, research is challenging some of our assumptions about aging knees. Studies involving adults with knee osteoarthritis have found that proprioceptive training can improve the brain's ability to recognize joint position and coordinate movement. And perhaps more surprisingly, research involving postmenopausal women with mild knee osteoarthritis found that progressively introduced jumping and impact exercises improved physical performance without evidence of worsening cartilage health on MRI.
So perhaps our knees don't always need less movement as we age. They need the right kinds of movement, introduced at the right level.
This is why I like exploring three approaches in Age Training: Pai Da to provide tactile sensory input, joint mobility to explore comfortable movement and loading, and progressive impact to develop the ability to absorb and respond to forces when appropriate.
From a Chinese Medicine perspective, we can connect this with the classical understanding of the knees as the storehouse of the sinews and the importance of maintaining the free movement of Qi and Blood. From a neuroscience perspective, we're exploring sensory information, coordination, and the body's capacity to adapt to changing demands.
The goal isn't simply to protect aging knees from movement. It's to maintain and progressively develop their capacity for movement.
AGE TRAINING LESSON: Don't assume bending your knees past your toes is harmful. Your knees naturally travel forward during walking, climbing stairs, and getting up from a chair. The goal is to build the strength, mobility, and confidence to tolerate these movements comfortably.
Neuro-Qi Tip o’the day!
Move those knees!
✔ Start your day by massaging the 5 Areas where Qi Gets Stuck [free video]
✔ Remember to awaken the communication from knee to brain (and brain to knee) with sensory & mobility work [demonstration is in the video below]
✔ Don’t move into pain. The knees can often have an ‘above or below’ mapping/movement issue.
*Video posts every Friday by 11:30am MDT
Resources:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1058913906800070
