strange pain inner knee, behind knee, on right leg

I've been really, really happy with my stretching improvements, but I'm noticing that I'm starting to get a strange pain in my... tendon?... whatever is running behind my right knee, on the left (inner) side of my knee.

sometimes I'm able to stretch without pain, but frequently I feel as if my groin is not being stretched at all and the only stretch occurring is on this spot behind my knee. I've had to stop the middle split stretch sessions a few times because the only place I can feel the stretch is this inner-knee area and it feels like I'm only leading to some type of injury soon.

I've made an appointment to see a physiotherapist about this, but I'm curious if anyone has any experience with this.

Jason,

Here are a few of the culprits that may be responsible for the pain in that area:  

Semitendinosus Tendon of the hamstring as well as adductor Tendon of Gracilis attach at a common Tendon on the inside of the Tibia. 

Here is an image of the area you are describing on the inside of the Right knee. Am I understanding you correctly, that you are feeling pain in a spot located generally on this picture.

I recently felt increased stretch here for a split second as I recently elevated my button higher, getting a deeper stretch. Adjusting the foot angle and hip angle a bit helped somewhat where I feel the pull on the inner knee. 

Hope this response is OK for you Jason, because looking at your profile picture, you look like you could reach through my computer screen and punch me in the face 

Frustrating, isn't it? You try to stretch your groin and you feel it in in the back of your knee, or somewhere else! Take that as a clue that those structures need some TLC. They might be the bottleneck before you can reach the desired area of the stretch you are after. As Ryan suggested, it often helps to pause and think for a moment what kind of positional tweaks you could perform now to alleviate the problem. Either above or below where you're feeling the pain sensation. More often than not, a simple weight shift, pelvis tilt, softening of your knee, or playing with your feet position may do the trick. Explore.

Ryan, your picture and description are first class  

Don't keep pushing toward that pain Jason. 

Remember pain is a friendly messenger telling us something is not right and we need to take heed. Most likely it is accumulated tension and it just needs time to adapt and recover.

I would simply back off for a week, stretch and keep limber but don't go into that deep end of range where you feel the pain. After a week, slowly proceed again. 

18 hours ago, Jason Berger said:

I've been really, really happy with my stretching improvements, but I'm noticing that I'm starting to get a strange pain in my... tendon?... whatever is running behind my right knee, on the left (inner) side of my knee.

 

sometimes I'm able to stretch without pain, but frequently I feel as if my groin is not being stretched at all and the only stretch occurring is on this spot behind my knee. I've had to stop the middle split stretch sessions a few times because the only place I can feel the stretch is this inner-knee area and it feels like I'm only leading to some type of injury soon.

 

I've made an appointment to see a physiotherapist about this, but I'm curious if anyone has any experience with this.

Any Special exercise you feel it in?

I have some of the same symptoms: In the right knee, on the back, but on the right side, not the left. I also have some pain in the Gracilis insertion on the inside of the knee. This occurs during pancake work, but not during standing iso middle split.

I've had to dial back the intensity quite a bit, but don't think my troubles are over. The odd thing is that there is not a trace of stiffness, numbness or pain outside of the stretch sessions. 

You guys are overthinking this.

The back of the knee is sore because on all of your other straight leg work you were working with a slightly bent knee and now for the first time this area is being exposed to stress and training.

Ease up a little and give it time to adapt.  You have simply found an unexpected weak link.  Nothing to be upset about, rather be grateful to have to opportunity to correct it and move on.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

I'm fine in the pike using completely straight legs, and my pike is actually decent, but other than that, you're correct Coach, as I haven't done any serious piked straddle work (ie. pancake) before. Definitely feeling it.

On 2016-04-04 at 8:39 AM, Coach Sommer said:

You guys are overthinking this.

The back of the knee is sore because on all of your other straight leg work you were working with a slightly bent knee and now for the first time this area is being exposed to stress and training.

Ease up a little and give it time to adapt.  You have simply found an unexpected weak link.  Nothing to be upset about, rather be grateful to have to opportunity to correct it and move on.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Yeah, coach nailed it here. My phsyio guy, who is awesome, pretty much knew exactly what I was describing. He had me lie down and immediately moved my leg into the exact position that sets it off. He told me to do some one-legged straight-legged deadlifts as a warm-up to get this area used to action and so it'll stop hijacking my pancake work.

So much great info on this thread, though. Thank you all for your input!

On 4 April 2016 at 10:39 PM, Coach Sommer said:

You guys are overthinking this.

The back of the knee is sore because on all of your other straight leg work you were working with a slightly bent knee and now for the first time this area is being exposed to stress and training.

Ease up a little and give it time to adapt.  You have simply found an unexpected weak link.  Nothing to be upset about, rather be grateful to have to opportunity to correct it and move on.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

This is so true for many of those weird pains we get. Keep it simple and let the body adapt.

Well, after just a week or two the pain that felt like I was going to rip my knee apart is totally gone and... my groin muscles have relaxed? Not sure how to describe it.

I've been doing the stretch series since last year and this entire time, in exercises like the frog stretches, my groin muscles were SUPER tight and basically said, "Nope!" every time I tried to get them to relax and unclench. All of a sudden my legs are spreading out into the middle splits. It's awesome.

On 4/18/2016 at 3:19 PM, Jason Berger said:

Well, after just a week or two the pain that felt like I was going to rip my knee apart is totally gone and... my groin muscles have relaxed? Not sure how to describe it.

 

I've been doing the stretch series since last year and this entire time, in exercises like the frog stretches, my groin muscles were SUPER tight and basically said, "Nope!" every time I tried to get them to relax and unclench. All of a sudden my legs are spreading out into the middle splits. It's awesome.

Jason, was that from just continuing with the stretch series and taking it easy, mindful of all the comments above?  Or did the supplementary exercises from the physio help as well?

I'm just curious, as I saw the title of this thread and immediately thought: "That's what I have!".  Your description of the behind-and-inside-the-knee-tendon-pain is exactly what I get in a number of positions.  I will bear the responses here in mind so I don't overdo it myself.

On 6/15/2016 at 8:03 AM, Duncan Angus said:

Jason, was that from just continuing with the stretch series and taking it easy, mindful of all the comments above?  Or did the supplementary exercises from the physio help as well?

I'm just curious, as I saw the title of this thread and immediately thought: "That's what I have!".  Your description of the behind-and-inside-the-knee-tendon-pain is exactly what I get in a number of positions.  I will bear the responses here in mind so I don't overdo it myself.

Hey Duncan, sorry for not replying earlier. I've been offline for a bit.

The tip from the physio helped a bit, but was probably unnecessary. Coach Sommers was right and it was only a matter of getting the body to adjust. I was stretching things that had never been stretched with a perfectly straight leg before. It's been almost a month since you asked this question: has stretching that area gotten easier since then?

No worries Jason, I've been offline a while myself.

No significant progress yet, but I think that's to be expected given Coach's comments about the length of time required for connective tissue to remodel itself.  Given that's your experience as well, but now that it's finally 'clicked' for you, I'll just keep my head down and stick to the schedule without thinking about it too much.

Thanks for your reply.

@Duncan Angus you may want to try some form of myofascial release with a therapist for the specific tight spot/area. It can be very beneficial in releasing any "adhesions" on layers that are stuck and not gliding freely hence improving the health of the tissue, so you can later train it to gain strength in the new found ROM, that otherwise would not be available prior the manual work.

Thanks Eva.  I am familiar with the terminology and have dabbled a bit with a foam roller and hockey ball, but I'm yet to learn the techniques properly and apply them consistently.  Your post reminds me to actually start reading the Supple Leopard book by Kelly Starrett I have on the shelf, to put some of it into practice!