According to groundbreaking research from Harvard University, the root cause of knee pain isn’t simply wear and tear as many believe. It’s actually something you can address in just a few minutes a day.

You’ve likely heard that wear and tear can degrade your knee cartilage. Here’s how it works:

Walking, bending, and lifting all place stress on your knees. Over time, this stress wears away the cartilage protecting your knee joints, leaving your knees bone on bone. This causes them to rub together, creating stiffness and pain.

The issue starts with the femoral nerve. Running from your lumbar spine down through the front of your leg, the femoral nerve is one of the primary nerves in your legs. It controls your hip flexors and quadriceps muscles, helping you walk, squat, lunge, and most importantly, stabilizing your knee joint.

This is where problems arise. The femoral nerve carries electrical signals that tell your muscles how to move. Our ancestors, who were constantly squatting and sprinting, had strong and “awake” femoral nerves. In contrast, modern humans often sit at desks and drive cars, leading to weakened femoral nerves over time. The electrical signals in the nerve become blunted, reducing its ability to support the knee and surrounding muscles.

Without specific exercises to activate it, the femoral nerve can’t adequately support the knee joint. This leads to weak quadriceps muscles that fail to support the knee, causing it to deteriorate like an old banana peel.

The only way to end your knee pain nightmare is by targeting your femoral nerve.