The knee is the largest joint in the body. It sits in the middle of two very long bones, hoping to hold them together as your body weight and the ground throw them in different directions. There is very little bony congruency between the two bones in the knee, so the joint relies on a variety of ligaments and a symphony of muscle contractions to keep it stable.
The knee comes complete with a handy little disk-like bone called the patella. The patella greatly increases the strength of the thigh muscles (quadriceps) as it helps them pull at a point further away from the knee joint’s axis. Picture trying to open a door close to its hinge, it’s a lot harder than opening the door further away at the handle. The same principal allows the patella to provide the quadriceps with the exceptional force we require to walk, jump, climb stairs and kick a ball.
The patella has to track up and down a narrow valley made by one of the long bones (femur) as the knee flexes and extends, and as you can imagine, a lot of force transfers through the patella as it does so. The Quadriceps controls the tracking of the patella. In Latin quad=four and ceps=head, so there’s four different muscle heads pulling the patella in different directions. If there is any imbalance of these pulling forces, the patella grinds excessively on one side of the valley and caused pain in the front of the knee.
This phenomenon goes by many names, but the most common is simply: ‘anterior knee pain’. People who suffer this complaint experience the pain during prolonged sitting, stair climbing, squatting or even while walking.
It is a surprisingly common condition, affecting up to 20% of adolescents aged between 12-20 (Tallay et al.2004). With prevalence rates twice as high in woman than in men (Nakagawa et at. 2008).
Physiotherapists can help diagnose this condition and treat it effectively by correcting the muscular imbalance.
The knee is the largest joint in the body. It sits in the middle of two very long bones, hoping to hold them together as your body weight and the ground throw them in different directions. There is very little bony congruency between the two bones in the knee, so the joint relies on a variety of ligaments and a symphony of muscle contractions to keep it stable.
The knee comes complete with a handy little disk-like bone called the patella. The patella greatly increases the strength of the thigh muscles (quadriceps) as it helps them pull at a point further away from the knee joint’s axis. Picture trying to open a door close to its hinge, it’s a lot harder than opening the door further away at the handle. The same principal allows the patella to provide the quadriceps with the exceptional force we require to walk, jump, climb stairs and kick a ball.
The patella has to track up and down a narrow valley made by one of the long bones (femur) as the knee flexes and extends, and as you can imagine, a lot of force transfers through the patella as it does so. The Quadriceps controls the tracking of the patella. In Latin quad=four and ceps=head, so there’s four different muscle heads pulling the patella in different directions. If there is any imbalance of these pulling forces, the patella grinds excessively on one side of the valley and caused pain in the front of the knee.
This phenomenon goes by many names, but the most common is simply: ‘anterior knee pain’. People who suffer this complaint experience the pain during prolonged sitting, stair climbing, squatting or even while walking.
It is a surprisingly common condition, affecting up to 20% of adolescents aged between 12-20 (Tallay et al.2004). With prevalence rates twice as high in woman than in men (Nakagawa et at. 2008).
Physiotherapists can help diagnose this condition and treat it effectively by correcting the muscular imbalance.
