Do you suffer knee pain?
Rehabbing Patella tendonitis
Recently and over the years I have been over come with people coming to me needing to rehab certain injuries. Some from having surgery, some due to lifestyle practices where they are experiencing pain in certain joints through day to day movements I.e. Lower back Elbows Shoulders and knees, Some from sports due to over use injury’s, and some from osteo arthritis. The range has been wide.
If you are experiencing knee pain you will want to continue reading.
If you wish to develop your squatting ability you will want to continue reading.
But today I am going to share a little advice on the most common and how I rehab this area after either knee surgery or from over use injuries commonly referred to as jumper knee or patella tendonitis. This will be the knee area,
The most common reason for re-occurring knee pain is what I call structural balance, This is where your agonist and antagonist (Push /Pull) Muscles are in divided strengths of each other, our body works in a tensegrity pattern where every muscle supports another to work and move correctly, the chain is only as strong as the weakest link now the main muscle that support the knee is the VMO (Vastus medialis). The VMO is activated when the knee extends past 90 degrees in a squat movement it connects with all 3 other quadriceps muscles to form the main leg muscle, your quad. The unique thing is with the VMO is it is the only 1 muscle of the 4 to cross over the knee making it a major player in stabilizing the knee. So if this muscle is not holding its weight (literally) you are going to have all sorts of dysfunction issues. Walking upstairs, standing and sitting, running, playing sports or squatting in the gym.
How many times do you hear people say, “ I can’t squat cause I have bad knees”
A easy way to test knee stability is to watch someone jump if the knee pulls in when they land you have very poor knee stability and under developed vastus medialis
If you have poor strength in you vastus medialis and play sport or run you will most certainly be setting your self up for problems in the future, due to the stress that is placed on the patella tendon every time your knee does not track correctly, this is why most people end up needing knee reconstructions I recently had one of my tae kwon-do athletes experience this the hard way after excessive poor traction of the knee had to under go knee surgery. (He now listens to my advice a lot more.)
Now because the VMO is only activated after the knee extends passed 90 degrees the Vastus medialis is very under developed in strength in most individuals due to not be activated in the sporting field and usually from what I see from most people is only do half range squats This is actually the worst thing you can do for knee stability due to the knee is at its weakest at 90 degrees, a common rehab exercise for this sort of pain and issue is swiss ball squats against the wall, another massive mistake! As you are not allowing the knee to move in its designed function of traveling forward and over the toe.
By half range and swiss ball wall squats or holds you are actually placing more stress on the tendon not the muscle itself.
So stopping in this range puts undue stress on the patella tendon, Smith machines or excess leg press is another cause. Most athletes that come and see me to improve performance will be very unstructurally sound due to these reasons, inadequate strength in the knee stabilizers, now this effects them in numerous amounts of ways due to all change of direction involves a massive amount of knee stabilization. Leading the person to be slower, and more susceptible to injury.
The foundations of the knee are to stabilize and allow full dynamics of the hip joint to create a full range of motion.
If there are limiting factors for this function cant not be performed, If the function can not be performed it is now a dysfunction and this is where problems start to occur.
Below are the dynamics of a correct squat with full range of motion with no dysfunction.
Now most people that experience some sort of knee pain leave it be thinking it will get better but unfortunately even walking around is making it worse until they start finding it hard to bend the knee past 30 degrees, But remember prevention is better than the cure.
So at Tight Fitness Solutions everyone develops structural balance, and everyone squats to full range NO EXCEPTIONS.
But unfortunately people with existing knee pain can’t accomplish this due to suffering pain if they try and do, poor flexibility and lack strength, Are 2 other reasons why they will find this extremely difficult.
So we need to have another plan of attack to strengthen the knee stabilisers without getting you to squat.
If you would like to know more about our injury programs please click here
Below are different exercises that can be used in the right prescription to rehab patella tendonitis and also correct dysfunctions of the knee joint.
Side step up:
Close Stance Heels elevated BB Back Squats:
“Stay Fit Healthy and Strong”
Tyrone Jensen.
Tyrone’s Qualifications Include:
- Cert IV Personal Trainer – (Pt Academy VIC) 2007
- T Effective Movement Trainer – (Pt Academy VIC) 2007
- Charles Poliquin PICP Level 1 – Oct 2009 (Queensland, Australia)
- Charles Poliquin PICP Level 2 – Oct 2009 (Queensland, Australia)
- Charles Poliquin BioSignature Level 1 – Nov 2009 (Queensland, Australia)
- Charles Poliquin P.I.M.S.T – Oct 2009 & 2012 (Queensland, Australia)
- Charles Poliquin Bio Signature – July 2011 (Queensland, Australia)
- Lv 1 Glen Pendlay Weight Lifting Coach Olympic lifting – Aug 2012 (Brisbane, Australia)
- Lv 2 Glen Pendlay Weight Lifting Coach Olympic lifting – Aug 2012 (Brisbane, Australia)
- Strength Coach Level 1 – Australian Strength and Conditioning Association – August 2011 (Brisbane, Australia)
- Charles Poliquin Hypertrophy Bootcamp semi-private internship – July 2012 (Queensland, Australia)
- Metabolic nutritionist – 2012
- Lv 1 Metabolic Precision Transformation Specialist – 2012 (Online certification)
- Charles Poliquin PICP Level 3 – Oct 2012 (Rhode Island, United States)
- Charles Poliquin PICP Level 4 – Oct 2012 (Rhode Island, United States)
- Charles Poliquin F.A.T Facial Abrasion Technique – Dec 2012 (Queensland, Australia)
- Milos Sarcev 3 day Muscle Camp – Feb 2013 (Queensland, Australia)
- How to train the female physic competitor – Clean Health Internship March 2013 (Sydney, Australia)
- Charles Poliquin Bio Signature – April 2013 (Queensland, Australia)
- Andre Benoit Hypertrophy Academy – April 2014 (Gold Coast, Australia)
- Strength System Lv1 – December 2015 (Australia)
- Muscle Nerds Fat Loss Seminar Lv1 – February 2015 (Gold Coast, Australia)
- Poliquin Group Bio Signature Lv2 – March 2015 (Sydney, Australia)
- Strength System Lv 2 – January 2016 (Brisbane, Australia)
- Muscle Nerds Fat Loss Seminar Lv1 – November 2016 (Melbourne, Australia)
