Anatomy TUESDAY – Palpation Series (Part 6 – The Popliteus)

Why does this little muscle get a whole blog post to itself? The popliteus is probably the most important forgotten muscle, especially when it comes to post surgical knee patients. Have you ever had a knee patient who lacks terminal knee extension after surgery? Most of those patients had full terminal extension just hours prior. And when you attempted to stretch them into extension, instead of feeling a stretch, they felt a “jam” in the front of the knee. That is the popliteus.

So, yes. It gets to have a blog post all to itself. I made a video on how to palpate and release the popliteus and only 9 people watched it. I realize it doesn’t sound that exciting, but it IS exciting when you realize you can achieve knee hyperextension after surgery.

Why does this matter?

The only time the patella does not come in direct contact with the femur is during terminal knee extension. A knee that does not fully extend:

has increased patellofemoral compression
feels functionally shorter (and will compensatorily over supinate)
is often the cause of a “limp” as it shortens the opposite stride stance

That’s it. I’m keeping this short so you watch the video and help someone regain terminal knee extension. A normal knee has more than 0˚ of extension and if it doesn’t, it’s mostly the fault of the popliteus. Learn to find it and fix it.

Because nobody has time to be in pain.

Until next time…