r/Kneesovertoes

Sled pulls. They rock.

I don't own a sled, live in a street where I could pull a sled and I'm not joining a gym just for the sled.

But I wanted to pull a sled.

So I improvised: I took the handcart I use to tow my kids and our piles of beach stuff around in summer and I pull my kids up the hill to the car from kindergarten every day.

I walk backwards up a hill pulling a handcart holding two preschool kids and all of their outdoor gear for around 450 m/1500 ft.

It's actually hard work and it activates far more of my glutes and hip stabilizers along with my quads than just walking backwards on a treadmill. Not that I am going to stop doing that.

At the end of the day, I'm so grateful to Ben Patrick for drawing so much awareness to knee health and providing such great resources!

Hi all,

Just started with the Knee ability zero program as i have had Knee pain in my right knee for months now. Tried improving my side glute strength, for months but that did not work at all.

For a few times i have tried ATG split squats but I can't get into any position (even my front foot elevated) pain / discomfort free. Should I keep trying them or just focus on petrik step (and the variant on a slant board) for a week or 4 first?

If yes, should the sets/reps be increased to compensate for not doing the ATG split squats?

And if yes, which is prefered? Petrik step or the version on the slant board?

Thanks in advance!

I have a long 15 years of patellar tendinopathy from jumping in my early 20s, probably 7 of those in pain as the other years I didn't do any physical activity. For the last 20 consecutive months I've been doing heavy slow resistance mostly 3 times a week. I do have a history of regular (nothing serious) strength/hypertrophy training for maybe 5 years, mostly in my early 20s (I'm 36 now).

Symptoms are stable, I wake up without pain and start to feel a little pain during the day and more pain during the warmups before HSR which goes away after a few reps. Little pain after workouts which vanishes the next day.

This is pretty much the last 10 months and I'm having a hard time trying to progress from here. Strength has plateau, I do single leg extension 4 sets of 4 or 5 reps with around 225 lb / 100 kg 3 seconds down, 1.5 seconds up (I'm 6'5 / 195 cm, 245 lb / 110 kg). I can no longer increase the weight and do more than 3 or 4 reps because of my strength, not my tendon.

I can jump, sprint with some some intensity, maybe 75% but anything above that will cause flare ups, same with heavy deep squats with a little bounce.

This hasn't changed for a long time and lately I've been reading about berlin method. What I think my situation is, is that I can no longer create tendon adaptations because of my strength (which IMO is decent but not enough to move the needle further) and the berlin method seems to fit in this case, because an ISO at 90% MVC for 3 seconds will for sure produce more force than the 100 kg I do in the single leg extension, meaning it will strain the tendon more = more adaptations.

Does this make sense or am I missing something in this picture?

I have been dealing with patellar tendinopathy since january 2026 (5 months), i made it worse by playing on it for another 3 months until i stopped in April.

I am a high level football/soccer player and have been obsessively trying to comeback so i naturally looked up everything from Jake Tuura to E3 Rehab to other language channels that cover PT.

its been 4 weeks of Jake Tuura's programme now and have been making great progress, i was able to do slow heavy squats at 70kg/ 155 lbs (i slowly increased the weight from session to session with 0 pain during exercice and 2/10 pain at MAX the mornings that followed).

Until yesterday, where my tendon was feeling a little bit more painful than usual but not more than a 3/10, i added some sissy squat because they seemed to hit a part i wasn't hitting and also did some very VERY light football(jogged and shot the ball a couple times at not even 20% intensity).

Now my tendon is painful, stairs hurt again where they didnt anymore for like 4 weeks, bending my knee hurts, flexing it hurts. I feel like i will have to regress a lot on my progress and i am very anxious and stressed about it. Football was and is my life for years now and i feel like i am wasting precious time from my life dealing with this .

I know this is the KneeOverToes forum, but I figure there are people that are also familiar with Jake Tuura here. I was previously programming with ATG ideology, and it did help my knee in some regard and helped me out back in 2022 regain my ability to squat below parallel, but it does not seem to work as well for patellar tendinitis/tendinopathy.

Anyway, I am now running Jake Tuura's Jumper's Knee Protocol, just over a week in (started 5/2). I understand that rates of progression will be different on a case-by-case basis, but I am just looking for some insight on other people's experience with the program.

• What was your starting point?
• How long did it take to move on to Phase 2?
• How fast did you/could you add load to the leg extension isometric?
• What type of strength level should I be aiming for on the leg extension iso?
  • I was previously able to single leg leg extension ~100lbs for ~10 reps but have atrophied since then. Currently doing 45s holds with 40lbs.
• How fast did you progress the lunge iso?

Last week on 5/6 I was able to get up to 55lbs on leg ext for 5 sets of 45s, but my leg was definitely shaking (is that a bad thing?). In that session I also was able to hold the lunge iso for 90 seconds, and then 60 seconds, with a 1-2 min rest in between sides. The morning after (5/7) I felt a bit of stiffness/mild pain in the patellar tendon and a little bit in the quad tendon too, so the next session I did only leg ext iso with 40lbs, and then the following sessions (5/8-5/10) continued with all the movements but leg ext still at 40 and lunge iso back at sets of 30s with 1min in between sides. I would say the irritation went away pretty quick and I had to take a day off completely yesterday (5/11) so it is feeling pretty good now in the day to day moving around.

I have a great ability to "dig deep" and fight through the pain, but I fear that I may be getting too excited and pushing progressions faster than I can recover from.

So basically, I am just looking for some input on how anybody went about progressing the movements and how long it took them. I am not even an athlete anymore, so my main concern is just getting back to lifting weights, anything beyond that is a bonus!

I would've included a picture but for the no knee pictures rule (?).

I'm 9 weeks post medial meniscus repair and my knee started hurting on the lateral side, starting from the side of the patella and going up about 3-5 cm towards the side of the quad. I've been feeling some tendons and/or ligaments rubbing over bone in that area during exercises and bike since early rehab and this week it started hurting. It's also tender to the touch.

I'm doing PT daily and the pain started 3 days ago. My PT gave me hip and glute exercises today to help with it and some isometrics. I feel like it gets more irritated during extension and flexion, which I can't really avoid. It bothers me while walking, standing and sitting/lying down. I'm not sure if it's IT band or something else. I'm pretty sure it's not the lateral meniscus but something to do with a tendon or ligament.

Also, I've been feeling a rubbing sensation in that area ever since the surgery and have had pretty loud creaking up until 2-3 weeks ago when it got a bit less audible, but the sensation of tendons/ligaments rubbing over bone is still there. What could this be?

Hey everyone! I know you from YT videos :)

I'm a recreational soccer player in my 40s. Back in 2000 I had an ankle sprain that was never properly treated, and in early 2026 my PT identified it as an anterior talar block causing chronic dorsiflexion restriction on my left side.

[Where I'm at]

Knee-to-Wall test:

- Left: 0.5 cm at baseline, now 4.5 cm after 2 months of work

- Right: ~9 cm (no symptoms)

The problem is that the ROM gained during the session almost entirely disappears within a few hours. I go back to around 2 cm. My PT suspects neurological guarding rather than a purely mechanical block, but we haven't nailed it down yet.

[What I'm doing]

- Astragalus mobilization with elastic band before any load

- Post-mobilization activation: SEBT, squats, short runs to reinforce the new ROM

- Gait re-training with tripodal foot contact focus

- Breathing work (4-7-7) to reduce psoas and diaphragm tension

[My question]

At this point, would you keep pushing for more ROM or shift focus toward building stability and motor control within the current range? Is there a KTW threshold where it starts to actually transfer to real movement, or is the "ROM that won't stick" itself the problem to solve first?

Would love to hear from anyone who's been through something similar.

Every suggestion is precious!

My knee specific routine for the last 12+ months has been:

1. 5-7 minutes of ATG backwards treadmill

2. Slantboard squats with Voodoo floss wraps, 2 sets x 20 reps

I do this 2-3 days a week. This has brought me knees to their best situation in a decade, not all pain is gone, but most of it.

Middle aged snowboarder + mountain biker. Diagnosed with patellar tendopathy for over 20 years.

Where should I go from here? I've had bad experiences in the past where scaling up other exercises made things worse.

Thanks!

Hi, I was wondering what the adaptive different is between 'bouncing' out of the bottom of a rep vs pausing at the bottom of a rep before contracting back out of it.

I remember watching a coach keegan videos about tendons being stretchy and acting as shock absorbers but it was a long time ago now and my memory of hazy on the subject.

I assume if we 'bounce' out of the bottom of the rep this has more of an adaptive benefit to the tendons vs pausing at the bottom of a rep increasing the load and therefore more of the adaptive benefit onto the muscles?

Is my understanding on this correct?

Thanks

What have you guys found in Australia for a manual treadmill that works well in reverse and with some decent slope?