Knee Pain
Causes, conditions, and how physical therapy helps
The knee is the most common joint people see physical therapists about — and one of the most treatable. Most knee pain falls into a few patterns: pain around the kneecap from load and tracking issues, ligament and meniscus injuries from sport, tendon overuse, and arthritis-related stiffness.
A physical therapist can usually tell which pattern fits your symptoms in a single evaluation, without imaging. The guides below explain each condition: what it feels like, why it happens, and what treatment and recovery look like.
Guides
ACL Tears: Symptoms, Treatment & Whether You Need Surgery
An ACL tear is a rupture of the ligament that stabilizes your knee during cutting and pivoting. Surgery is common for athletes returning to pivoting sports, but research shows many people do well with structured rehabilitation alone — and even surgical cases need months of physical therapy to return safely. The decision is individual; the rehab is not optional either way.
2 min readReviewed by a licensed PT
IT Band Syndrome: Why Your Outer Knee Hurts When You Run
IT band syndrome is irritation where the iliotibial band crosses the outer knee, causing a sharp or burning ache that reliably appears at a certain distance into a run. It's a load and hip-strength problem — the fix is managing training volume and strengthening the hips, not stretching or foam-rolling the band into submission.
2 min readReviewed by a licensed PT
Jumper's Knee (Patellar Tendinopathy): Symptoms & Treatment
Jumper's knee is an overload injury of the patellar tendon, felt as a pinpoint ache just below the kneecap that warms up during activity and complains afterward. Rest alone rarely fixes it — the evidence-based treatment is progressive tendon loading, which typically takes 8–16 weeks of consistent work.
2 min readReviewed by a licensed PT
Knee Arthritis: Why Exercise Is the First-Line Treatment
Knee osteoarthritis is gradual wear of the joint's cartilage that causes stiffness, aching, and reduced activity. Every major clinical guideline names exercise therapy — not rest, not imaging, not early surgery — as the first-line treatment, because strengthening reliably reduces pain and can delay or avoid joint replacement.
2 min readReviewed by a licensed PT
Knee Pain on Stairs or Squats: What It Usually Means
Knee pain going down stairs or into a squat most often points to patellofemoral pain (runner's knee), because bent-knee positions load the kneecap joint several times body weight. Tendon pain below the kneecap and arthritis-related aching are the other common causes — the location and pattern of your pain usually tells them apart.
2 min readReviewed by a licensed PT
MCL Sprains: Symptoms, Grades & Recovery Timeline
An MCL sprain is a stretch or tear of the ligament on the inner side of your knee, usually from a blow to the outer knee or a twist with the foot planted. Unlike the ACL, the MCL has a strong blood supply and heals well: even complete tears are typically managed with progressive rehab rather than surgery, over 2–12 weeks depending on grade.
1 min readReviewed by a licensed PT
Meniscus Tears: Symptoms, and Why Most Don't Need Surgery
A meniscus tear is damage to the C-shaped cartilage that cushions your knee. Sudden traumatic tears in young athletes sometimes need surgery, but for the far more common degenerative tears in adults over 35, high-quality trials show structured exercise therapy matches surgery's results — without the operating room.
2 min readReviewed by a licensed PT
Runner's Knee: Symptoms, Causes & How Physical Therapy Helps
Runner's knee (patellofemoral pain) is an irritation around the kneecap caused by how the knee is loaded — not structural damage. Physical therapy resolves most cases in 6–12 weeks with targeted strengthening and load management, without imaging, injections, or surgery.
2 min readReviewed by a licensed PT
When to See a PT for Knee Pain (and When a Doctor First)
See a physical therapist for knee pain that has lasted more than two to three weeks, keeps returning, or is changing how you move. Go to a doctor or urgent care first for red flags: a hot swollen joint with fever, inability to bear weight after an injury, a locked knee, or rapid swelling within hours of trauma. Everything milder is reasonable to self-manage briefly — but briefly.
2 min readReviewed by a licensed PT
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