My Knee Pain Story

Hello friends! Today I thought I would share an old story of my knee injury. This condition helped inspire me to become a physical therapist!

In college, I spent hours in the gym playing recreational and intramural basketball. Over time, I started to notice sharp knee pain under my kneecap. The pain would hurt more and more with running and jumping activities.

Eventually, I went to see the school doctor and physical therapist. I was diagnosed with patellar tendonitis. They massaged my knee, prescribed a few band exercises, and iced my knee.

Let’s just say, the physical therapy didn’t help…The muscles around my knee were not challenged and my body was not forced to make adaptations to become more resilient. It wasn’t until after college where I was able to tackle this ailment.

 Thanks to being unemployed, I had plenty of time to research on good ole youtube and Reddit. Now of course you don’t want to trust everything on the internet, but many times, it can be a great source of discussion. I was able to learn about folks who’ve been through my injury and the different approaches they took to tackle it.

I WAS able to take control of my knee pain through education and proper loading. Here’s a couple of things I learned. Do not take this as medical advice as every injury and every person is different. See a local health professional if you are in pain!

Find a comfortable range of motion: The key here was to find a comfortable range to train and progressively overload.  A deep squat was very painful at my knee, but a box squat was comfortable. After mastering a box squat I was able to build resilience and achieve a deep squat.

Overload: In my physical therapy, I was just using the yellow band. There were no weights and no challenges for my body to overcome. In my training, I used a variety of bands and a variety of exercises such as hip thrusters, squats, deadlifts, and various band exercises. With all of these, I would try to challenge myself to new heights each session.

Warm-up: That’s right! Warming up is important to allow your body to be prepared for these new stimuli that you will place on it. I would never go for a max lift, jump or run without a proper warm-up. Find a way to gradually work into the activity that you will be performing!