It is very likely that almost every tennis player will experience knee pain at one point in their career. Playing tennis on the hard courts (the only courts in Los Angeles) is tough on the joints and surrounding muscles. The overuse of the quadriceps muscles result in build up of trigger points – extremely painful spots anywhere in your muscles. The trigger points often refer pain to other areas in the body. One common place of tightness and trigger points is the illiotibial band (IT band) – a connective tissue that runs along the outside of the thigh from the hip to the knee, and often causes pain on the outside of the knee. Any lateral movement can be excruciating. This painful condition is called illiotibial band syndrome. There are many factors that can contribute: poor flexibility in the hips, tights, and calves, strength imbalances in the body, incorrect movement mechanics, poor shoes or overtraining. Stretching the IT band helps, but it is not very easy stretch to perform.
AUTHOR
Suzanna McGee
A former Ms. Natural Olympia Bodybuilding champion, currently performance coach, injury prevention specialist, plant-based nutrition coach, author, speaker and raw vegan athlete. Loves to help others by sharing her knowledge, and to hang out with her little scruffy dog Oscar. Find Suzanna on
Instagram, Facebook and Amazon.
220 posts
You may also like
In tennis, you need to start quickly, accelerate, stop, change direction, load and unload your legs and hips and for all this […]
The hips are the center of your body. They connect the lower body and the upper body to work as a unity. […]
Spreading toes sounds like something we don’t do very often. Can you spread your toes as easily as you can spread your fingers? […]
Trigger points are small, extremely painful spots in your muscles. If you push on these spots, you will feel agonizing pain and […]