Tape The Quad to Reduce or Prevent Knee Pain

Help to learn to reset where straight is for your knee.

Get the hip knee and calf to function more like a spring and distribute the impact forces while walking and negotiating inclines and stairs evenly through your whole leg.

You can tape Your knee in a way that tells your brain to use the quad more and to straighten the knee more with leg use. One of the most common drivers for knee pain in exam data is the lack of complete straightening of the knee when walking on flat surfaces, incline or going up or downstairs.  Due to posture control changes and instability with movement in the spine, hip and pelvis complex the hip flexors and hamstrings are engaged over the abdominal glutes, quads, and calves.  This recalibrates where “ straight” for the knee is in the brain to slightly shy of all the way straight to sometimes all the way to 10° shy of straight.  Overtime, this turns into knee pain due to the lack of shielding of the knee joint line from impact forces and increased compression and friction at the kneecap. 

This taping technique coupled with increased attention to squeezing the knee completely straight when you’re actually supposed to be straightening the knee and not collapsing into a knee bend when you are advancing the opposite leg with walking. Ascending stairs and thinking about walking quietly when going down stairs or hills can help to retrain the underlying causes of knee pain and soreness.

Often times people are concerned about hyperextending the knee, especially people who tend to be hypermobile. However, if you tuck the tailbone while straightening your knee, you will actually engage the Glute and the quad and have a very stable knee.  Typically if your posture control is not set correctly, and someone straightens the knee all the way it will hyper extend because the brain will use the tension in the back of the knee from the hamstring and the calf to stabilize instead of creating a lift from the quad and the Glute and spring through the calf.

Practice using stairs and walking with a tailbone tuck, straightening the knee on one leg while pushing with the toe on the other leg. Use the tape to help you find that pattern and maintain it. Click here to learn more tips and tricks for walking. Click here to get started with some basic exercises to help too.