What is Runner’s Knee?
Runner’s knee or patellofemoral syndrome is a dull ache or pain felt inside of your knee cap, or patella. This often feels like rubbing, grinding, or clicking under the patella, which may cause your knee cap to feel tender or swollen.
You’ll likely feel pain during sports and exercise, but also during any daily activities, such as standing or sitting, climbing stairs, squatting, walking or kneeling.
What Causes Runner’s Knee?
There are several potential causes of runner’s knee, which may include:
- Improper warm-up: some athletes skip or neglect to warm-up properly before their exercise or sports event. Without proper warm-up, our muscle’s elastic fibres will be stiff and tight, increasing our risk for injuries or tears.
- Overtraining: many athletes are passionate about their training, but may be overtraining or straining their muscles and joints. Overtraining your body may cause a breakdown of your muscle tissue, increasing a risk for injury.
- Muscle weakness: your joints are part of a kinetic chain, working together to create meaningful movements. Your knee is one of the most used joints in the body, carrying the weight of your body all day. If there are any weaknesses or imbalances in your ankle or hip muscles, it can create a chain reaction causing runner’s knee.
- Trauma or injury: sports injuries and trauma occur, which may have a direct impact on your kneecap or patella. The compressive forces of the kneecap into the groove creates inflammation and pain the region.
How to Treat Runner’s Knee?
There are several things you can do at home to treat your runner’s knee before you need to come into our clinic for treatment. These include:
- Rest and recover: in the early stages of runner’s knee, you’ll experience a lot of pain and swelling. The best thing to do is to identify the activity that caused the pain and take a break from the activity. If the knee is swollen, place ice over the knee and elevate your leg while lying on your back.
- Stretches: runner’s knee often happens because our tissues are too tight, causing pain and swelling. We can stretch the muscle to relax and loosen the fibres, including using a foam roller to stretch our iliotibial band, stretching our quadriceps, hamstrings and calves.
- Exercises: many athletes experience runner’s knee because the muscles along the kinetic chain are fatigued, creating an injury. You can strengthen the muscles along the leg to avoid risks and recover from injuries. These exercises include clamshells, squats, arch lifts and more.
Conclusion
Runner’s knee is a common condition that afflicts many athletes, but it can be treated when properly managed. You can treat it at home by resting the knee and placing ice while elevated. But, if the issue persists, contact our physiotherapy clinic for an evaluation of your runner’s knee and overall health conditions.
