Move Aware.

DIY Knee Rehab

A week ago I had pain in my right knee.  I could feel it any time my knee was flexed past where the angle between my lower leg and thigh was 30 degrees or so, but it was especially painful as the knee flexed more.  The pain was pretty much unbearable if I tried to sit on my ankles to do a Child’s Pose back stretch, for instance.

Over the last week I’ve been deeply massaging the tissue around the lateral area of my right knee and trying to work restrictions out of the muscles that attach near the knee: TFL/IT band, vastus lateralis, biceps femoris, gastrocnemius, peroneals.  That had gradually improved the pain a bit, but today I think I finally found the source of the pain: the popliteus.

The popliteus is a small muscle that originates with a tendon at the lateral distal end of the femur and attaches to the medial side of the tibia.  It’s the muscle that rotates the tibia around the femur to “unlock” the knee from a straight position when you flex the knee.  While I was digging around among the various tendons in the posterior lateral area, I found some tight fibers that seemed to be running diagonally, closer to perpendicular to the tibia rather than parallel as most of the muscles are.  I remembered reading about the popliteus, and a quick glance at the Trigger Point Therapy Workbook and Gray’s Anatomy confirmed that it was probably responsible for the pain.

You have to dig pretty deeply to massage the popliteus, but I found some painful spots and worked to release them.  Instant relief.  It’s still a little bit sore, probably because I haven’t completely eradicated the trigger point(s) and the tissue to which the popliteal tendon attaches might be inflamed from the tension, but at least now I know how to treat it.  This pain had been steadily getting worse for months, and I was worried that I might have damaged the cartilage within my knee and might need some kind of surgery.  Nope.  Soft tissue was responsible, and soft tissue work will fix it.  This boosts my resolve to always try soft tissue work first, since I can do it myself and it costs only a few minutes every once in a while.

My best guess is that movement patterns caused by strength imbalances and lack of ankle and hip mobility had overworked or overstretched the popliteus over time.  There have been occasions where I’ve put my feet up without the back of the knee being supported, and the hyperextension made my knees pretty sore by the time I took my feet down… that could have also played a part.