Chronic knee pain - Patellofemoral pain syndrome

Dull knee pain can be reduced with a just few quick tips and tricks. Read on so you can sprinkle a little magic health dust on your sore knee.

Gradual onset of knee pain can be vague and if it is not diagnosed to its exact origins it can be very difficult to treat and can keep going on and on and on. Generally, we can separate knee pain into different causes including using it too much, being weak or tight in your quads and or having an accident. Each one of these categories are associated with different parts of the knee that can become inflamed and painful.

The most common knee pain from running, hopping and jumping sports like netball is known as patellofemoral pain syndrome. It is as a result of weakness and tightness of the quads that generates mal alignment of the knee cap felt as a diffuse ache all over the knee. It is often stirred up by playing the sport or can even be generated by walking up and down stairs or sitting for long periods. The key structure that is the culprit in this pathology is the knee cap which manages to sit slightly out of its groove. In doing so it grinds on the femur bone and causes inflammation of the articulating surfaces.

So what is the magic health dust for this type of knee pain! It’s a simple realignment of your patella back into its groove. We do this by loosening up the outside of the knee and the muscles running up your leg with massage or foam rolling and then support the patella in its groove with some taping and strength work. The following video is a simple instruction on how to tape the knee. After we tape the knee correctly the pain should drop significantly when walking up and down stairs and this can be the test you use to see if you are taping correctly.

After it is massaged and taped to prevent the friction it is now time for the strength work to begin for the knee joint but also the hip and ankle joints as well, this will help keep that pesky knee pain away for good and reduce your need for taping in the future . The work will include good old strength and proprioception work . Things like vmo activation , foam rolling , wall squats and specific glute / calf work all help top keep it away for good . Check our next post for our top three exercises to keep your dull knee ache away for good .