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Patellar Tendinitis/ Jumper's knee

Writer's picture: Vasant BHANDIVasant BHANDI

Pain in the front of knee?


Jumper's knee, also known as patellar tendonitis, is a condition characterized by inflammation of your patellar tendon. This connects your kneecap (patella) to your shin bone (tibia). Jumper’s knee weakens your tendon, and, if untreated, can lead to tears in your tendon.


Signs & Symptoms:

  • Pain and tenderness around your patellar tendon

  • Swelling

  • Pain with jumping, running, or walking

  • Pain when bending or straightening your leg

  • Tenderness behind the lower part of your kneecap

Causes:

  • New to sports and exercises.

  • High volume of squats (Quadriceps dominant training) or lower body exercises without adequate recovery planning.

  • Lack of hamstring and quadriceps mobility and flexibility training in your program.

  • High intensity interval training (HIIT) and plyometric training.

  • Ankle mobility: lower ankle mobility leads to over compensation at the knee resulting in over loading of patellar tendon.


Patellar Tendinitis Rehab:

At Physio Genics we follow evidence based rehab measures

  1. Rest: Give adequate recover time for lower body and continue fitness and conditioning through non-impact activities like: swimming, upper body and core training.

  2. Ice: Cryo-compression had greater recover results.

  3. Compression: Patellar tendon support brace.

  4. Manual therapy to mobilise the patellar tendon, and soft tissue around the knee.

  5. Quadriceps and Hamstring mobility and flexibility plan.

  6. Progressive eccentric loading of patellar tendon.

Exercise is an important component of the management of patellar tendinopathy. A variety of loading programs have been suggested for the treatment of patella tendinopathy with the main types being:

  1. Eccentric loading

  2. Eccentric-concentric loading

Adapted from Malliaras et al. 2013

Programme

Exercise type

Sets & Reps

Frequency

Progression

Pain

Alfredson

Eccentric

3x15

Twice daily

Load

Enough load to achieve with moderate pain

Stanish and Curwin/Silbernagel

Eccentric-concentric

3x10-20

Daily

Speed then load, type of exercise

Enough load to be painful in third set

Heavy slow resistance training

Eccentric-concentric

4x6-15

3x/week

6-15RM

Acceptable if was not worse after


Note:

Check article "Patellar Tendinitis Rehab Exercise Plan" for further input.


References:

  1. Malliaras P, Barton CJ, Reeves ND, Langberg H. Achilles and patellar tendinopathy loading programmes. Sports Med. 2013;43(4):267-86. (level of evidence: 2a)

  2. Witvrouw E, Bellemans J, Lysens R, Danneels L, Cambier D. Intrinsic Risk Factors for the Development of Patellar Tendinitis in an Athletic Population: A Two-Year Prospective Study*. The American Journal of Sports Medicine. 2001;29(2):190-195. doi:10.1177/03635465010290021201

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