Knee pain – any success with taping or straps?

Triathlon Forum
1

I’ve had knee pain flare up over the past two and a half weeks. I haven’t had knee problems before but I’m pretty sure it’s patellofemoral pain syndrome, the pain is under my knee cap.

I’d been following the BarryP program and was loving it. I built up real slowly from 20 mpw in January to 40 mpw two weeks ago, and the pain started half way through the 40 mile week. I dropped back to 28 miles the following week, and only ran 14 this week including the Quassy olympic yesterday. My right knee isn’t so bad but my left is pretty sore. I can still run, and it doesn’t hurt as bad while running (or maybe I’m able to ignore it while running) but after running it’s sore, especially when going down stairs. Ice makes it worse so I stopped trying to ice it.

I’ve searched through the forum and found some exercises people recommend for patellar pain (straight legs lifts, clams, isometric quad work, eccentric single leg squats, etc.) and have been doing those.

I have Mont Tremblant 70.3 coming up in less than 3 weeks, and then the Mont Tremblant full in August. I really don’t want to loose the running gains I’ve made this season so I’m wondering if anyone has been able to keep up their running while rehabbing similar knee pain.

Do KT Tape or those knee straps help? If so, any recommended taping methods or preferred straps? Any other kinds of exercises or rehab that’s worked for you? How much did you have to cut back mileage and for how long?

Thanks!

2

I’d add to stretch and strengthen your glutes. Get a foam roller. They heal many things.

Any tape or strapping probably won’t hurt and might help, worth a shot… non invasive

3

Kt tape has videos on using there tape. I believe one or two are on the knees.

4

I’ve had knee pain flare up over the past two and a half weeks. I haven’t had knee problems before but I’m pretty sure it’s patellofemoral pain syndrome, the pain is under my knee cap.

I’d been following the BarryP program and was loving it. I built up real slowly from 20 mpw in January to 40 mpw two weeks ago, and the pain started half way through the 40 mile week. I dropped back to 28 miles the following week, and only ran 14 this week including the Quassy olympic yesterday. My right knee isn’t so bad but my left is pretty sore. I can still run, and it doesn’t hurt as bad while running (or maybe I’m able to ignore it while running) but after running it’s sore, especially when going down stairs. Ice makes it worse so I stopped trying to ice it.

I’ve searched through the forum and found some exercises people recommend for patellar pain (straight legs lifts, clams, isometric quad work, eccentric single leg squats, etc.) and have been doing those.

I have Mont Tremblant 70.3 coming up in less than 3 weeks, and then the Mont Tremblant full in August. I really don’t want to loose the running gains I’ve made this season so I’m wondering if anyone has been able to keep up their running while rehabbing similar knee pain.

Do KT Tape or those knee straps help? If so, any recommended taping methods or preferred straps? Any other kinds of exercises or rehab that’s worked for you? How much did you have to cut back mileage and for how long?

Thanks!

Disclaimer: I am going off verbal comments here without actually seeing how your body moves and what specifically is causing this pain during your movement. So take this FWIW, but I am speaking on experience with people that I have worked with successfully that have echoed your exact same comments.

I will echo some of the comments above.

I am not a big fan of. KT tape, it might be a very short term solution, but it will not resolve your issue.

Speaking from experience dealing with athletes that have been in your shoes, I have had a lot of success building more hamstring and glute strength. You can do the resistance band stuff, but if you really want to build strength I would recommend using progressive external loading as the most ideal solution. Box squats (more beneficial for cranky knees), along with RDL’s, Deadlifts, Bodyweight hamstring curls (not the isolated machine options), will yield you great results. Of course the challenge is finding you a qualified strength coach that can prescribed your workloads correctly but it really is the best option.

If you do not have the resources to do it right now, I would recommend doing this at the latest in your off-season. If not for performance health, it will help tremendously for your full health going forward.

5

Disclaimer: I am going off verbal comments here without actually seeing how your body moves and what specifically is causing this pain during your movement. So take this FWIW, but I am speaking on experience with people that I have worked with successfully that have echoed your exact same comments.

I will echo some of the comments above.

I am not a big fan of. KT tape, it might be a very short term solution, but it will not resolve your issue.

Speaking from experience dealing with athletes that have been in your shoes, I have had a lot of success building more hamstring and glute strength. You can do the resistance band stuff, but if you really want to build strength I would recommend using progressive external loading as the most ideal solution. Box squats (more beneficial for cranky knees), along with RDL’s, Deadlifts, Bodyweight hamstring curls (not the isolated machine options), will yield you great results. Of course the challenge is finding you a qualified strength coach that can prescribed your workloads correctly but it really is the best option.

If you do not have the resources to do it right now, I would recommend doing this at the latest in your off-season. If not for performance health, it will help tremendously for your full health going forward.

Thanks, this is very helpful. I had been consistent with a strength program (Erin Carson’s ECFit) earlier in the year but backed off while building up mileage more over the past ~month and a half.

So in your experience the issue is likely hamstring and glute strength and flexibility? I’m happy to reprioritize strength work if it will help with my knees. I’m also happy to foam roll like Dr. Tigerchik suggested. My hamstrings are naturally very flexible, I can put my palms flat on the floor with my legs straight, so sometimes it can be hard for me to tell when they’re tight.

Also, in your experience, were your athletes able to keep running while rehabbing their knee pain? Like I mentioned, it doesn’t seem to hurt as bad while running but the pain is definitely there afterward, and especially down stairs or hills. (today I went for a swim and my left knee wasn’t happy pushing off the wall! hopefully that’s just tightness from racing yesterday). Regardless, I don’t want to make things worse but I’m really worried about loosing the run base I’ve built up.

6

I’ve been battling patellofemoral pain syndrome recently and finally have the upper hand! I tried the bands but don’t trust them as I wonder whether they alter forces on the menisci. And hate the way they feel about to slip down etc.

Clams with resistance bands above knees, straight leg raises with foot dorsiflexed and rotated laterally (alternating with foot straight up at 12 oclock), and foam rolling the quads until tears are in my eyes has been my strategy.

7

I use a patellar Velcro strap just under the knee and I don’t have any pain while running or after. Stretching and foam rolling has helped a lot as well

8

Go to a physical therapist
.

9

Squats and stretching helped me. I did body weight squats, than lunges and some other variants.

KT tape didn’t help. Strengthened the muscles and did stretches and foam roller.

10

I didn’t expect this thread to get revived but thanks everyone for their input.

What’s helped me the most has been strengthening and balance work for everything around the hips/quads/glutes/hamstrings. What has seemed to have been most helpful have been eccentric single leg squats, body weight squats and lunges, and the Myrtl routine. When I have time I’ll also do monster walks, bridges, Swiss ball hamstring curls and/or Nordic hamstring curls, Romanian deadlifts, single leg dead lifts, and a few other mostly body weight exercises. Seems to be going well.

Foam rolling has at times helped a bit (maybe?) and other times it just seems to do more harm than good, so I’ve generally been going easy on the rolling.

11

I’ve used one of those Velcro “jumpers knee” straps in the past, and it worked well for me. I even raced a whole marathon with one. They’re cheap (like $9) so it’s no big loss if you try it and it doesn’t help. It certainly didn’t do any harm for me.