Anterior Knee Pain Rehab (Runner's Knee) for BJJ | Part 1 (15 min)

I'm not too fussy about what kind of foam roller you use, there's plenty available on the internet. It really doesn't matter too much. People generally find the ones that are solid foam a little bit softer, which might be more appropriate if you're new to this. If you're a little bit heavier, or you've been foam rolling for a while, you might find that you get a better result from a slightly harder roller.

But do experiment with different kinds. The other thing that I'm going to be using is some TheraBand. This is just stretchy band. I've tied this one into a loop.

You can get it in different strengths. The green one is a medium strength. If you want a lighter one, you can go down to red, or if you want a stronger tension, you can go up to blue or even black. Again, these are easily available on the internet.

So I'm going to start by doing some foam roller work onto the muscles on the front of my leg, my quadriceps. I'm going to roll up and down. I want to try and find the points that are a little bit more sore, a little bit more tender, and hang out there for a little bit. What this is very good at doing is desensitizing pain that comes from those muscular trigger points that we tend to get from hard training.

A lot of the time, we get those tender points that build up, and very often, they can also radiate pain to the knee, or they can exacerbate knee pain that we're getting for other reasons. So by working on the quadriceps like this, sometimes that can really help to reduce the amount of pain that we're getting at the knee. And again, you can focus on the points that are more sensitive to pain. And again, you can focus on the points that are more sore than are more tender.

If you find that this is a bit too strong for you to start with, if it's too sensitive, you can always put one foot on the floor just to reduce the tension a little bit. That's fine as well. And then from there, I'm just gonna roll onto my side. And I'm gonna go work down my IT band.

Now, this tends to be very sensitive, especially if it's the first time you've done this. So feel free to put the foot down on the mat to take some of the pressure off. And again, working down the lateral quads and the IT band there. So I can just change the angle there, looking for those sore spots.

And then when I've done that, I'm gonna switch that up. And then when I've done that, I'm gonna switch that up. I'm gonna do this one on both legs. So if this is very sore to start with, put a bit more weight through that supporting foot.

Okay. When I've done that, I'm just gonna go in on the other leg and stretch out the opposite wing. And then bring it down on this side. One, two, three.

Okay. Once I've done that, I'm going to take my loop of theraband. I want to hook this round a table leg or if I've got a heavy chair, that can also work. I'm going to step.

So I've stepped into the band. I've got the band behind my knee and what I'm going to do is put some tension on that. I'm going to take the knee to the floor. So I'm straightening the leg with the tension of the band pulling forwards.

So this is a really good one if you've got, there's quite a lot of pain there. As with all of these programs, they build up in difficulty. So the first one is a good place to start if the injury is quite sensitive, quite painful. As we go through the programs, we're going to be putting a bit more load on the knee joint.

We're going to be working things a bit harder. Okay. And one more. I'm going to switch sides.

With this kind of knee pain, I find it's definitely worth working both sides, even if you're only getting the pain on one side. Because very often, if there's an issue on one leg, there's a bit of an underlying issue with the other one as well very often. We're just going to repeat that once more on each side. And the thing you'll notice about these exercises is these first few, they're really dull.

It's all about just getting things moving and just starting to get those muscles engaged. I'm afraid it's not terribly exciting, but it needs to be done. So as the pain starts to settle, we can start doing things that are a bit more challenging, more interesting. Okay.

We're going to go into hip bridges. So for this, I want my feet about hip width apart and my knees at roughly 90 degrees. I don't need to measure it exactly, but that's what I'm aiming for. I'm going to just lift my hips straight up in the air.

I'm going to pause for a second and put them down again. Okay. So I'm not going to one side or the other. Just straight up, straight down.

I'm trying not to let my knees flop out to the side as well. So I should feel this through the glutes and the hamstrings. So into my butt and down the back of my legs. And with all of these exercises, there shouldn't be any sharp pain.

If you are getting sharp pain, please stop and get that checked out. It might be a little bit of discomfort in the knee, but we don't want it to be more than a mild, mild discomfort. So when I finish that set, I can just have a bit of a stretch in the chest. I'm going to go into the next set and do the same thing again.

I want to try not to arch my back too much when I do this. I'm trying to push my hips forward as much as I can and squeeze, squeeze from the glutes. I don't want to arch my back. If you find you're getting cramp down your hamstrings when you're doing this, then you may need to start with an easier version.

Sometimes I'll even get people just pushing into their heels without lifting their hips up. If they're getting a lot of cramp, that usually means that there's an issue there that we do need to address. So it can be a good exercise, but we just need to start with an easier version. So I've done a couple sets of that.

What I want to do now is some isometric holds for this. You can put your back against the wall. If you've got one of those big inflatable balls, a Swiss ball or a physio ball, you can use that, put that behind you, or you can just put your back against the wall. I'm just going to walk down until my legs are...

If I can get them parallel on the ground, that's great. If that's putting too much pain through the kneecap, then I'll come up a little bit and I'll hold it at this position. So I want to find the point where it's a bit uncomfortable, but it's not really painful. There's no sharp pain.

I'm going to hold that for about 20 to 30 seconds. Okay, so depending on how acute the knee pain is and how sensitive it is, we're going to adjust how hard we make the exercise. Again, I'd always rather that you start with a little bit less than you think you can do the first time you do it, and then you can always increase the amount you do and the amount of load you're putting on it as you go on through the plan. What we don't want to do is do too much too soon and have it flare up on us.

So I'm going to come back up, walk around, shake my legs out. Just take a breather for a minute. Again, and then we're going to go back. We're going to do the same thing again.

Again, just at a height that's comfortable for you. We want to be working on the edge of your comfort zone. If you're getting any sharp pains through the knee caps, come right the way up. I'd say it's fine to start here if it's painful.

Again, what we find is by doing these isometrics, it's a really good way of helping to calm that pain down. Sometimes by putting a load through the muscle, it can help settle things down. We just need to make sure that we're hitting the goalie lock zone. We're not doing too much, we're not doing too little, we're just doing the right amount.

That's going to be slightly different for everyone. We're going to come up, just give the legs a shake off. We're going to finish day one there. We'll come back tomorrow and we'll add a few extra exercises in and take the next step.