In this video I am going to show you a quadriceps muscle, quadriceps tendon stretch and mobilization for knee pain and tightness.
This technique is helpful for improving the flexibility of the knee secondary to quadriceps tendonitis, tendinosis, following surgery or strain often due to sports injuries or trauma.
It’s a great self acupressure technique too. You can use one or two balls to improve the flexibility of the muscles, tendons and fascia.
Tweetables:
Technique for improving the flexibility of the knee secondary to quadriceps tendonitis, tendinosis, following surgery or strain [Click To Tweet]
Stretch Exercises For Quadriceps, Hamstrin and Glutes [Click To Tweet]
Quadriceps Muscle Stretching Mobilization [Click To Tweet]
Transcript:
Hey guys, this is Manu Kalia, physical therapist and Ayurveda herbalist. So today I’m going to show you guys a stretch, actually a mobilization technique, to stretch out your quadriceps muscles in more of the distal part of the quadriceps, which is more of the…we’re going to try to get this area through here, and what we’re going to do is we’re going to use a tennis ball. Now, I have two tennis balls and I have them taped lengthwise and sideways also to keep them together, but you can also use one tennis ball too. So this is kind of cool to mobilize it this way or stretch out that tissue, especially if things have gotten really restricted, bound up, and adhesions that are formed, and quite often a lot of restriction here will prevent the person from bending the knee properly in this position. So this is one other technique to get at that tissue more specifically.
So what we’re going to do is I’m going to take this ball and basically it’s going to be sitting just above…here’s my kneecap, it’s going to sit just above that point. So if we had one ball, it would be sitting just above here. And maybe your VMO or the inside of the quad is tighter, you could isolate to that site, or if the outside, your lateralis is a bit tight, you could place it on the other side too, but we’re going to use two and we’ll put it right on top through here. So I’m going to be laying on my stomach and here’s the ball and here’s my kneecap, I’m going to place it just above my kneecap.
So what I’m going to do first is just put a little pressure on that and I’m going to get used to just rolling back and forth just like I’m doing a massage. A little bit of acupressure, pressure on the region as well as on the sides, I’m going back and forth. And I can go even further up, up the chain, all the way up to here.
Now, let’s say since I’m targeting just above the kneecap, so that quadriceps tendon where the quad starts to attach just above the patella or the kneecap, so now I’m going to put some pressure there and I’m going to do a little bit of bending so that really stretches my quad as well as starts to mobilize it with that ball too. So I can do it actively, too. I can do hamstring contraction, so I’m flexing my knee, contracting my hamstrings as well as stretching my quads. So I can really get in there and put some pressure on. And you can control how much pressure you want to add to that, and that will really help stretch out that tissue, break some of those adhesions that are formed and help you get that bending back. For a lot of you runners and others, athletes, if there are a lot restrictions and there are adhesions that have formed and that’s limiting the proper movement of that patella or you’re just having difficulty bending that knee, I think this can help a lot.
So I hope you enjoyed that video. f you have any questions, leave a comment. Thank you.
