The Easiest Knee Pain Exercise (That Can Also Be Used To Assess Knee Pain)

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Knee Pain is one of the most common diagnosis in the world that results in millions of dollars spent on surgery, rehabilitation, and disability. It is wildly misunderstood and often times over complicated!

As a result, many people suffer from poor outcomes to treatment and continued suffering from knee pain. While this post is by no means trying to solve everyone's problems. It is trying to show how treating the knee CAN be simple. It does not have to be complicated. And you can still being effective! Perhaps the biggest misconception in orthopedic rehabilitation circles is that every exercise HAS to be functional or it is a "bad" exercise as it does not relate to life...

I would like to challenge that myth by saying that ANY exercise the helps develop greater tissue capacity, tissue resiliency, and overall movement confidence will be EXTREMELY helpful in removing someones pain and functional disabilities. Furthermore, a simple knee exercise such as the knee extensions shown in this video can be very useful to overcome knee pain and keep it away for good! So long as you know why, when, and how to use the exercise.

It was once thought that knee extensions were a "bad" exercise because the were not functional and it put to much compression to the knee joint... Unfortunately this opinion was short sighted as obviously they did not consider that people with healthy knees are able to run, jump, change direction or simply go down stairs. All these activities will put compressive forces on the knee which the body NEEDS to be prepared to handle. We need to think more deeply before we call an exercise "bad".

The knee extension (through full range of motion in the open chain) can be a useful way of building quad strength and capacity. As well as patellar tendon strength, capacity, and tissue resiliency. Again, running, jumping, change of direction, and simply going down the stairs will put as much if not more compressive force on the knee. So this exercise is perfectly fine to do from a safety perspective. That being said, when someone is dealing with pain our approach has to change slightly until they are out of pain. When in pain and dealing with patellar tendinitis or patellar tendinosis issues (also known as jumpers knee). The point of tendon highest sensitivity will be at bottom position where the tendon is on most stretch. So in some instances we may want to avoid this position until pain and sensitivity levels have decreased. In this instance an isometric at ~45 degree knee bend can be useful.

Isometrics are also a great way to continue training the tendon and quad muscle safely while sporting or workout intensity/workload is high. If someone is dealing with a patellar or knee joint issue. Commonly referred to as patelofemoral pain syndrome. Then the entire movement can be irritating as opposed to just the starting position. Also in this case, the last 30 degrees of open knee extension tend to be the most painful. So again, we can still train the muscles around the knee in a NON-PAINFUL way by performing an isometric at 45 degrees. Essentially avoiding the repetitive movement and irritating range of motion. Until the pain and sensitivity levels have decreased and you can gradually return to a full range of motion with the exercise as tolerated.