Did you know that around 50% of athletes end their career due to knee issues related to jumper’s knee? Studies have shown that patellar tendinopathy, AKA jumper’s knee, is one of the most common knee injuries in basketball and volleyball players.
It is NOT a inflammation of the tendon.
Jumper’s knee is a degenerative process of the patellar tendon NOT an inflammatory process of the tendon. This is important to understand because most people think that when they have jumpers knee they should rest, but it actually will do more harm than good. Moreover, the patellar tendon is not inflamed, but has degenerative changes from failed healing due to overuse. The biggest takeaway about jumper’s knee is that it’s a gradual degenerative injury as opposed to an acute injury. In other words, there will be no true acute mechanism of injury, but instead it will be an overuse injury.