mobility issue with knees - swivel hips - mulligan technique

HI all. 
 
I have some issues with the mobility movement swivel hips. i do have tight hips and seemingly super tight ITB and lateral muscles of both legs which I am working on, but when doing the swivel hips movement, I have some serious issues on the medial part of my knees. Both knees are affected, but the left is nearly double the pain of the right.
 
This is the best way I can explain the pain and discomfort
 
on the inside of both knees, crossing the knee joint I seem to have some intense pain when performing certain movements. The main movement is sitting down, feet farther than hip width apart, then dropping the knees to one side. I pull on the inside of the knee and is pretty painfull, as performed with the swivel hips.
 
I am not working on swivel hips because of this. I have a few friends who are in strength and conditioning and postural correction, and something that he mentioned to me that the problem could be was this
 
" If you are getting pain during this movement it suggests that torque/gapping load on the medial aspect of the knees is the mechanism for pain..Many athletes experience this and relief can be found with deep friction work to the medial collateral ligament and medial meniscus.... Check out Mulligans work and how to apply mobilizations with movement -especially his hands on techniques for this area"
 
 
So my question would be, does anyone have some info on the mulligan technique for movement and mobility for the knee? Or coach, do you now more about this and can suggest a mobility that may assist me in loosening off the knee, allowing me to stretch and mobilize the other parts of the body needed to master the swivel hips.
 
Cheers
Bret

Swivel hips is an internal rotation of the hip mobility exercise. If the hip lacks internal rotation then the next available joint to get movement from is the knee joint. This is usually why the knee joint hurts. Unless you have a really stiff knee joint in rotation, which for this exercise would be rare I would focus on getting the hip more mobile.

Mulligans technique is really good for improving hip joint range of motion. The technique originated in New Zealand and is popular with Australian physiotherapists. I am not sure if there are many that know the technique in the USA. I would check with local physiotherapists and ask if they have done specific Mulligans training. Kelly Starret from mobility WOD uses a lot of self mobilisation using Mulligans techniques.

thanks mark, yes I follow kelly, his stuff is awesome.

You are right with the movment being the internal rotation, but I have never had this kind of pain before doing the swivel hips. I recently got back from a season snowboarding in thredbo, I thought I might have aggrivated it there. I am already doing mulligans on my hip and finding a greater increase in movement, but apparently there are some movements that are used on the knee for this kind of issue, which is why i was asking.. I can't really afford to go to a physio, as I am moving to the US and my budget is already so low I am not sure what I am giong to do

Unfortunately Mulligans techniques works 10 times better with a therapist doing it on you. The self mobilisations are good but you cannot replicate the direction of glides a therapist can.

If you can save up some money to get professional help you will get quicker results. Otherwise I would focus on self massage of the calves, quads, hamstrings and hips. Skiers will give you knee rotation under load. How are your twisting squats? Also keep up the hip joint mobilisation you are doing.

yeah I agree that it would be better with a practitioner, but that is something I am going to have to work out later.

I haven't moved on to twisting squats yet, still in my first 12 weeks of F1. I will be doing a fair bit more stretching on the above mentioned muscles as you suggest..

cheers

bret

Mark Collins said:

Unfortunately Mulligans techniques works 10 times better with a therapist doing it on you. The self mobilisations are good but you cannot replicate the direction of glides a therapist can.

If you can save up some money to get professional help you will get quicker results. Otherwise I would focus on self massage of the calves, quads, hamstrings and hips. Skiers will give you knee rotation under load. How are your twisting squats? Also keep up the hip joint mobilisation you are doing.

I always thought that the knee is a hinge joint so it's not supposed to rotate?

it is a hinge joint, but it also has limited transverse rotation.