Knee Stretches

Here we will start by looking at how to tell if your muscles are tight and then go on to talk about how to stretch safely. We will also look at how you can get the maximum benefit for the least effort when doing knee stretches.

If you want to jump straight to knee stretches for specific muscles, chose from the following: Quads, Hamstrings, Calves, Glutes (Buttocks), Piriformis or Iliotibial Band (ITB) stretches.

Do I Need To Do Knee Stretches?

The best way to tell if you need to do knee stretches because of muscle tightness causing or contributing to your pain is to see a physical therapist who can fully assess you. However there are some simple tests you can try at home that will give you an indication of any tightness in the quads or hamstrings so let's start there. 

Are My Quads Tight?

1. Simple Test: lie on your tummy on a firm surface. Bring your heel towards your bottom. If you can touch your bottom with your foot (or nearly can) your quads are probably fine. If you can’t, they are probably tight and would benefit from Quads stretches.
   
   
2. Pro Test: Sit on the bottom edge of a bed. Hug your good knee into your chest, leaving your other leg relaxed. Slowly lean backwards until you are lying down on your back. Let your free leg relax and hang down off the bed and see how much the knee bends without you pushing it. If it bends less than 90°, you probably have tight quads.

Getting the Best Results

With knee stretches, it really is a case of "no pain, no gain". Stretching effectively should be moderately uncomfortable, i.e. slightly unpleasant, when you do it, but only in the muscle being stretched, and the pain should stop as soon as you stop stretching.

If you feel nothing or only slight discomfort when doing knee stretches, the exercise will likely not be very effective – you need to push it a bit further. However, if you have damaged a muscle e.g. quads tear, you should NOT start stretching too early – wait until you can use the muscle without pain before starting knee stretches.

How Do I Do Knee Stretches?

Knee stretches will be done differently depending on which muscles you are focused on lengthening:

Simply choose the muscle group you want to start with from this list and you will find a whole range of knee stretches to start working on. Stretching exercises have been proven to help decrease knee pain and reduce the chance of injury so are well spending time on.

Stretching vs Strengthening

People often make the mistake of starting by stretching their knee muscles rather than strengthening them. When there is muscle weakness, the other muscles around the knee try to compensate and provide stability themselves by tightening up to control knee movement.

If you carry out knee stretches without first strengthening the muscles, you can actually cause more knee problems as you are taking away your body’s support structure making the knee less stable and putting more force through it.

Therefore, I often advise people to start with knee strengthening exercises and then after a couple of weeks, add in knee stretches. Ideally, you want to be doing both alongside each other. So don't delay, start today!

Page Last Updated: 11/01/23
Next Review Due: 11/01/25

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