Let's say that you are a random individual who one day started to notice a bit of knee pain when you went for walks. You ignored it for a bit, thinking it might go away, but a month later it's still nagging you. You decide to go online real quick to see if there are some things you can try to alleviate your pain. You will first probably have to slog through a litany of sites trying to sell you creams and braces and junk. But you're smarter than that. You go looking for some exercises and search 'PT exercises for knee.'
What do you find?
You're going to stumble on a thousand videos of physio's balancing on physio balls, twisting around with rubber bands, box jumping, and telling you that your knee pain is actually coming from your low back. There's probably a few gems among those videos that get it right and you'll probably have some decent success if you tried out a few of those exercises for a while, but this is a really inefficient method.
I believe PT's and patients alike have been falling into a trap of thinking that the fancier an exercise looks, the better it is for you. But I would argue this isn't true for about 90% of cases. PT is and should be fairly straightforward, as long as we're talking about exercise selection. The realm of diagnosis and screening for red flags can be trickier and is where the heft of our education lies, but once we're past those points, the basics are best.
You know why you're knee hurts?
For the vast majority of cases, whether you have osteoarthritis, a meniscus tear, patellar tendonitis, plica syndrome, or any other knee condition, the real issue is that your knee isn't regularly going through a full range of motion and your quad isn't strong enough. If we just focus on those two things, for the vast majority of patients and issues, your knee will start to feel better. You don't need to jump from a foam platform onto a bosu ball and throw a med ball to the side back and forth to improve that knee pain.
You just need to move it through it's full range of motion and strengthen your quad. Seated, laying down, or standing - bend your knee fully and straighten it fully. Do that a handful of times every day. Then do some loaded squats or knee extension 3-4x per week to strengthen your quad. Do just those two things, and your knee pain will improve without you having to sit through an hour+ of ever more elaborate PT exercises.
PT can and should be straightforward. Simplicity isn't the enemy. I do my best to give my patients 2 homework exercises after each session. No more. People can do two things. They won't do fifteen and they definitely won't do something that has 3+ steps to each exercise.
Want to address your issues in a straightforward manner that works? Try out Harbor Performance and Rehab.
Thomas Emiren
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