Stretching for Knee Pain

Thursday, 23rd November 2023

Are you or someone you know suffering from knee pain? Well, you’ve come to the right place! Stretching can be a helpful way to reduce knee pain if you are experiencing it. While it may not resolve all of the symptoms it can be a great place to start if you can do it comfortably, as a common cause of knee pain can be the result of increased muscle tension around the knee. Below we go through some of the muscles that move and support the knee, their roles and how you can stretch them.

Muscles that affect the Knee

A lot of the muscles of the thigh cross the knee joint or attach around it. Some of these muscles are as follows:

Hamstrings

Run down the back of the thigh as shown in the image. This muscle helps to bend the knee and also extend the hip. The hamstrings are important for running, in particular sprinting.

Adductors

Run down the inside of the thigh as seen in the picture which has a front view of the thigh. These muscles move the knee inwards, rotate the hip and knee inwards, and stabilise around the hip. These are important for kicking and side to side based movement.

Quadriceps

Run down the front of the thigh as seen in the image. These muscles help to straighten the knee and bend the hip. These are important for squatting and jumping.

How can Stretching help Knee pain

Because some of these muscles attach below the knee joint, if these muscles are tight, it can cause knee pain. So how do we fix this? Some gentle stretching can do the trick! Make sure you stretch only until you get a gentle pulling/stretching feeling and should not be painful. Here are some videos below that can help show you how to stretch each of these muscle groups.

Alternate options to Stretching

If you are particularly flexible or the stretches are sore, then foam rolling or use of a trigger ball can be a better way to loosen these muscles or a massage with our friendly massage therapists can be a great way to start to loosen these muscles for you.

If you try these and they don’t reduce your knee pain then come and see one of our physiotherapy coaches as they will be able to guide you on what would be beneficial to reduce your symptoms. Additionally, if you are having trouble doing the exercises in this blog post our physios can help show you how to do them or give you an alternative movement to try! So, get stretching!

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