Question
I have been running pain free for more than a year. Recently I find that 1 1/2 miles into my run I experience pulling on my knee cap and tightness in that shin. If I stop running and walk the pain stops. I can then add in some 100 yard sprints without the pain resuming. I also find that my knee hurts after prolonged sitting at my desk. The knee does not hurt when doing squats even with weight. It seems not to be the knee joint that is the source of the pain. I am doing exercises to strengthen the glutes and lots of stretching and foam rolling to the ITB. Any suggestions or thoughts? I really would like to be able to do my usual 3 mile and 6 mile runs again.

Answer
Hello Len,

Sorry to hear about the knee pain.  The good news is that I think you can probably fix it yourself.

If you look at a picture of your quadriceps muscles,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gray430.png
you can see that all the muscles come down toward your knee and attach to the tendons and fascia type material that surrounds and your knee joint and encapsulates your knee cap.

Normally the type of knee pain you are describing comes for some or all of the quadriceps muscles being inappropriately tight and yanking on the tissue that ends up encapsulating your knee cap.

I explain this in greater detail on my completely free website,
Do-It-Yourself-Joint-Pain-Relief,
http://www.do-it-yourself-joint-pain-relief.com/
where I have follow-along videos for every joint in the body.

I'm going to recommend you visit my Knee Joint Pain Relief page,
http://www.do-it-yourself-joint-pain-relief.com/knee-joint-pain-relief.html
and follow along with the videos.  I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the results.

I appreciate that you have been using a roller, but I do think releasing the tissue in the way I show you will prove much more effective.

Also, it's not unusual for your knee to hurt during some activities like running or sitting, and not hurt when doing squats.  If you find and release the right muscles your knee joint pain should instantly go away.  Then if the pain comes back in a while from running or whatever else is causing the tissue to tighten then you will have a very quick way to fix it.

I do hope this helps.

All the best,

Gary Crowley