I think I forgot to mention that I fell over when I was hiking six months ago then had to climb down loads of wet, slippery stairs after. That’s when the pain first kicked in and it’s been with me ever since. 

Hmm that’s interesting. Sounds like you’re getting some good insights. I wish I could find a specialist that can determine that sort of thing.

Thanks for these links – they all sound really relevant to me, so I will give them a try.

Hi Kaitlin. Thanks for these links – I will have a look through them all. I have seen three different physiotherapists who have all given me different exercises to do to strengthen my hips and glutes, but so far no improvement. This is why I’m thinking about core strength and whether that would help me. 

I agree with you Alec that I think my problem is down to muscles not firing properly. I don’t feel that all the foam rolling etc helps massively. I haven’t run for six months now and have been doing a lot of sitting which I guess doesn’t help. Yet I feel as though the physio exercises I’m doing to try and strengthen my glutes and hips are causing my knee to hurt. It’s all so frustrating.

Thank you David – this is all really helpful. I didn’t know where to start before but this has given me some good pointers.

The knee pain on stairs is very relevant to me. I think there’s something awkward about the way that I move. I think my femurs rotate inwards which is why I think the pistol squats and glute bridges cause me problems.

Re the orthotics, I have very high arches. I tried running shoes for pronation and they helped initially. I definitely have weak glutes and hips too but I thought I would have seen an improvement after doing the strengthening exercises for over a month. Anyway, thanks again and I’ll see how I get on with all this.