The above video is responsible for a very quick improvement in knee pain I started experiencing earlier this week. I’d had this knee pain before but never did anything for it – I’m not sure why it went away and didn’t know why it had come back. It hurt when I went down stairs, during some movements in training and not others, and I could feel a wretched crunching under the skin (and under the knee cap) when I bent and straightened the knee like a hinge.

This video explains that it’s an issue of misalignment, often caused by weakness and tightness in the quad muscles. So the answer is to stretch those stabilizing muscles and keep them supple. The methods of stretching and using a foam roller are demonstrated in the video above.

I’ve been doing these stretches (without the strap; I’m not fancy, but I do use my left hand to hold my right foot so that there’s this cross-tension to keep the knee straight) and rolling on my version of a foam roller for two days now and already I feel significant improvement in my knee. It doesn’t hurt going down stairs, is a far more dull pain when I do get a pang in training, and the crunching is nearly gone. So, obviously I’m keeping up with it and hoping to both resolve the current issue and prevent it from coming back again in the future.

Below is a video I made at the gym that shows my improvised (and super inexpensive) roller. I can’t film myself doing the rolling moves from the video above, and I’m not a Physical Therapist, so use the above video as your guide or search YouTube for the key words that fit with your own needs. I do show one technique on the roller that’s for the Achilles Tendons. Mine never give any sensation that they’re tight, but every time I do this technique the tightness becomes evident. (Kevin is a big basketball fan and so he’s got a keen awareness of torn Achilles tendons, which means I get to hear about the dangers of it on the regular.) About 1.5 years ago I had very bad heel pain from running, which I self-diagnosed as “heel spurs.” It was most painful when I got up in the morning or when moving from padwork in the ring to walking flat on the cement floor of Lanna (going from being on my toes to flat-footed, I imagine). This technique on the roller resolved that issue and I have no heel pain at all anymore; so if you have heel pain maybe give it a try.

Now the real challenge will be to see if I can get Bank, Pi Nu’s 14 year old son and Lumpinee fighter who is experiencing knee pain to try it. This will take a LOT of explaining.

My Vlog Update about Rolling and My Knee Pain