Physical Therapy Exercises for Knee Pain
When it comes to reducing knee pain, these physical therapy exercises should be first on your to-do list. Knee pain is a common injury that affects running, walking, and daily activities like climbing stairs. But whether you’re a high level athlete or someone just wanting to go through your day without knee pain, these 4 exercises can improve knee mobility, increase strength, and reduce your knee pain. Scroll to the end to see these exercises in action!
Physical Therapy Exercise 1: Knee Extension
This is the first exercise I start with when treating my patients who have knee pain. This is because knee pain is often associated with tightness in the back of your knee. Even if you don’t notice this tightness, your knee joint and the surrounding capsule can still be tight causing pain. However, I’ve seen this simple stretch improve knee extension (straightening) and allow you to both straighten and bend your knee easier. Essentially this exercise unlocks your knee joint and is very effective in reducing pain.
How to perform: loop a strap, towel, or belt around your forefoot. Squeeze your thigh to straighten your knee as much as possible. Pull your foot toward you feeling a stretch in your calf and the back of your knee.
Parameters: Hold 2-3 seconds. Perform 30 reps 3 times per day.
Physical Therapy Exercise 2: Knee Extension Firing
Once you stretch your knee into extension, you’ll want to improve your ability to actively move your knee into this newly gained range. If your knee has been stiff for a while, your quad muscles (the muscles in the front of your thigh) may have lost their ability to fire, or turn on, and straighten your knee correctly. This is why you want to practice using your quad muscles to straighten your knee after you stretch into extension. You want to teach them how to fire strongly in the newly gained range.
How to perform: lay on your belly and tuck your toes under. Squeeze your thigh to straighten your knee as much as possible.
Parameters: Hold 2-3 seconds. Perform 30 reps 1-2 times per day.
Physical Therapy Exercise 3: Quad Stretch with Towel
Tightness in your quad muscles can also cause knee pain. This exercise addresses both tightness in your quad muscles and in your knee joint. Using a towel with this exercise opens the knee joint very slightly increasing the space in the joint. This allows the joint to move easier and also has a pain relieving effect on the joint.
How to perform: place a small towel behind your knee. Bend your knee by pulling your foot up toward your butt.
Parameters: Hold this stretch for 30 seconds. Perform 1-2 times per day.
Physical Therapy Exercise 4: Cross Friction Massage
When you have knee pain, you may be able to point to specific spots around your knee that are sore when you touch them. This soreness can be from tissue adhesions or tissues that have been taking extra stress and therefore become sore. Cross friction massage pushes deeply into the tissue under these sore spots increasing blood flow and promoting healing.
How to perform: find the tender areas around your knee, push down into the tissue, massage back and forth. The pressure you use should be uncomfortable but not painful.
Parameters: massage for 1-2 minutes in each painful area 1-2 times per day.
If you have pain specifically while squatting, check out my series on how to reduce knee pain with squatting for more strategies to reduce your pain.
Still unclear about how to perform these exercises? Watch the video below to see them in action!
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Disclaimer: These exercises are not a substitute for full medical evaluation. You should consult your doctor if you are experiencing any new pain. If any of these exercises sound especially helpful for you, be sure to discuss with your doctor the best way to implement them into your health plan and ask for a referral to a physical therapist for a full musculoskeletal evaluation.