What Causes Anterior Knee Pain?

Getting pain in the front of your knee is a common occurrence and is usually caused by and over-loaded patellar tendon. Tendon problems can be tricky to get on top of, but the rehab follows a simple framework of progressive over-load. When we work with athlete’s with tendon problems, we explain trying to find the ‘goldilocks zone’ when loading the tendon. We want to over-load it enough to stimulate tissue adaptation, but not so much that we re-irritate and initiate a pain cycle. Do enough, but not too much.

If you are struggling to get up/down stairs, run, squat, or even walk, this is a nice way to start calming down symptoms and lightly load the tendon. 

Knee Pain Relief Exercise

Here’s what to do to relieve anterior knee pain:

• Grab a band to support some of your weight. 

• Make sure your foot is straight and push your knee to the outside of your foot’s mid-line 

• Dip down to 45 deg, without the knee caving in. 

• Straighten the knee out 100% and squeeze for ~3-5 seconds at the top. 

• Repeat 30 times or until slight irritation/pain starts. 

Doing this as a warm-up its a great place to start getting your pain under control and getting back to training without limitations.

Struggling with knee pain? 

Checkout our free downloadable video series on common knee pains and what to do about them. Get it HERE.