It's a basic fact that flooring installation occurs at floor level, so you're going to spend a lot of time on your knees.

The problem is that although knees are very good at carrying the body's weight when you're upright, they not designed to bear a lot of weight when you're moving around in a kneeling position.

One of the medical conditions that a floor layer can develop is kneecap bursitis. This is caused by repeated pressure on the kneecap, which inflames a small sac called the pre-patella bursa.

There are several other bursas in the knee, including the infra-patella bursa, that can also become inflamed if you spend a lot of time working on your knees.

When a bursa is operating normally, it holds a few drops of fluid which lubricate the movement between the bones and tendons.

But if the joint is put under too much pressure or strain, it tends to collect excess fluid and swells up, sometimes quite dramatically.

Bursitis makes the knee very painful to move. In serious cases it can also become infected, which may require surgical cleaning.

Long term abuse of your knees eventually wears out the surfaces of the joints between the bones, causing arthritis.

The simplest treatment for a mild case of bursitis is to rest your knee and put ice on it. In more serious cases the bursa may need to be drained with a needle.

If the pain and swelling become chronic, the bursa might have to be removed through surgery.

The easiest way to avoid knee problems is to take care of them while you're working.

You can do this by wearing knee pads whenever you're working on your knees, and giving your legs a break by periodically standing up, stretching and walking around.

Knee pads

There are lots of different knee pads on the market, ranging from cheap mass-produced products to high quality custom-fitted models.

Don't wait until you're nursing an injury before you start to wear knee pads!

You should put them on whenever you're going to be working on your knees.

It goes without saying that if you look after your knees while they're still healthy, you'll be able to keep them that way for many years.

Stretches and exercises

Keeping the muscles around your knees strong and flexible will help you to reduce the chance of an injury.

There are lots of exercises you can do to strengthen your muscles and improve your flexibility. If you play competitive sports on weekends or go to the gym or a fitness class regularly, you may already being doing some of them.

Have a look at the examples shown on the Just for fun page for this section. These simple exercises will help to get you started.