Conditions
Knee & hip pain
A sports chiropractor can often help with mechanical knee and hip pain: runner's knee, IT band pain, patellar and hip tendinopathy, and hip impingement. At Next Move in Orlando, that means a full hour finding which joint is overloading the painful one, hands-on treatment the same visit, and the strength work meant to keep it that way.
The knee mostly does what the hip and ankle tell it to. We figure out which joint is actually driving the problem, treat it, and rebuild the strength to keep it fixed.
What's actually going on
Three patterns behind most knee and hip pain
Different names, same theme: a joint or tendon carrying more load than it's prepared for, usually because something nearby isn't doing its share.
Tendinopathy
Patellar and quad tendons at the knee, glute and hip flexor tendons at the hip. A tendon asked to handle more load than it was prepared for gets painful, stiff in the morning, and cranky at the start of training. Tendons do not respond to rest. They respond to the right dose of load, progressed carefully.
Overuse injuries
Runner's knee, IT band pain, hip impingement flare-ups. These rarely come from one bad step. They come from a spike: more miles, more volume, a new sport, a return after a layoff. The tissue is not damaged so much as under-prepared for what you asked of it.
Mobility restrictions
A hip that will not rotate or an ankle that will not bend pushes stress somewhere else, and the knee sits in the middle, absorbing it. Knee pain is often the symptom of a restriction above or below it. Stretching the painful spot misses the joint that actually needs the work.
Why it keeps coming back
Because the painful joint usually isn't the problem joint
If every treatment has aimed at the spot that hurts, the thing feeding it never got touched.
Rest calms a knee down. Then you go back to the gym or the trail, the same hip stiffness and the same landing mechanics load the same spot, and it flares again. That cycle isn’t bad luck. It’s the predictable result of treating the symptom while the cause keeps working undisturbed.
Quick adjustments and passive treatments have the same ceiling. They can make the joint feel better for a few days, but nothing about how you squat, land, or walk has changed, and tendons don’t rebuild capacity from being rubbed or rested. They rebuild from progressive load, which takes an actual plan.
So the fix has two jobs: settle the irritated tissue, and change the mechanics and strength deficits that were overloading it. Skip the second job and you’re renting relief, not owning it.
How we treat it
The four-step pathway, applied to your knee and hip
Same framework as every plan at Next Move, aimed at the specific joint, tendon, and training load in front of us.
01
Assess & Collaborate
A full-hour exam that looks above and below the painful joint: hip rotation, ankle mobility, squat and gait mechanics, single-leg control, and the training history that led up to this. Where it hurts and why it hurts are usually two different places.
02
Reduce Pain
Hands-on care to calm the irritated tissue: adjustment where joints are restricted, cupping and IASTM where the tissue is overloaded, and honest guidance on what to modify. Almost never “stop running.” Usually “run differently for a few weeks.”
03
Fix Your Patterns
Retrain what set it up: hip hinge and squat mechanics, single-leg strength, tendon loading progressions from isometrics toward heavy slow work, and mobility drills aimed at the actual restriction instead of wherever feels tight.
04
Become Resilient
Build the joint's capacity past your normal demand, so mileage, stairs, and heavy squats sit inside what your knee and hip can handle. The goal is not surviving your sport. It is having room to spare.
When to see someone
An honest word about red flags
Most knee and hip pain is mechanical and responds well to the kind of care we do. Some of it isn’t. If your joint is hot, red, and swollen with a fever, if you can’t put weight on the leg after an injury, if the pain woke up overnight without any change in activity, or if you have a history of cancer with new unexplained joint pain, see a physician first. Those need imaging or medical workup before anyone should be treating the mechanics.
Part of the 60-minute exam is screening for exactly this. If what we find looks like something outside our lane, we’ll say so plainly and point you to the right next step instead of booking you for visits that won’t help.
Start here
New Patient Exam: $150 · 60 min
A full hour, one-on-one: history, movement assessment, root-cause diagnosis, and your first treatment.
Not sure yet? The Free Consultation is $0 (15 min · telehealth): talk it through with Dr. Nguyen before booking anything.
Where to start
Chiropractor, physical therapist, or orthopedist?
For knee and hip pain the answer depends on how it started and how the joint behaves, not on which door you walked past first. Here is the split, including when we are not the right one.
Sports chiropractor at Next Move
Pain that came on with training or activity, no major trauma, no locking or giving way, and you want the diagnosis, the hands-on treatment, and the rehab plan from one person in one 60-minute visit. A good fit for runner's knee, IT band pain, tendinopathy, and hip impingement symptoms without confirmed structural damage. Not the place to start after a fall or twist you could not walk on, or if a surgeon has already told you what the joint needs.
Physical therapist
Rehab after surgery (ACL, meniscus repair, hip arthroscopy), where the surgeon's protocol sets the timeline, and any case your physician is already coordinating. A good PT and a good sports chiropractor overlap a lot on knee and hip pain; the difference is usually format: how long the visit is and whether treatment and rehab happen in the same hour. If you have a PT you trust, keep going. If you were discharged and the pain came back, that is a reasonable time to see us.
Orthopedist or your physician
First stop after significant trauma, if the knee locks, buckles, or will not bear weight, if the joint is hot and swollen, if you have night pain unrelated to activity or a history of cancer, or if months of well-run conservative care have not moved the needle. They order the imaging, rule out fractures, tears, and arthritis, and decide whether injections or surgery are on the table. If they clear you for conservative care, we pick it up from there.
When imaging makes sense
Most knee and hip pain does not need imaging up front: IT band syndrome and runner's knee are diagnosed by history and exam, with imaging reserved for cases that do not respond. It is warranted after acute trauma when you cannot bear weight, cannot bend the knee to 90 degrees, or have bony tenderness at the kneecap or the head of the fibula, or you are 55 or older, and for suspected hip impingement, where a plain pelvis X-ray comes first and MRI follows if the picture is unclear or surgery is being considered. Next Move does not image on site; if the exam points that way, you leave with a referral to a physician or imaging center rather than a guess.
Going deeper
Runner's knee, IT band pain, or something else
Outside-of-knee pain in a runner usually gets called IT band syndrome and front-of-knee pain gets called runner's knee, but those labels are handed out by location before anyone checks the behavior. Location is the first clue, not the last. Patellofemoral pain (runner's knee) sits around or behind the kneecap and dislikes stairs, deep squats, downhill running, and long sitting with the knee bent. IT band syndrome is sharp and specific on the outside of the knee, often arriving at a predictable point in a run and easing quickly once you stop. Patellar tendinopathy is a fingertip-sized ache just below the kneecap that is often worst at the start of jumping or squatting and warms up as you go.
Then there is the group that should not be treated as a running overuse injury. Pain along the joint line with catching, locking, or swelling after a twist points toward the meniscus. A knee that gives way, or pain on the outside after a direct blow, raises the ligaments. Groin or front-of-thigh pain with limited hip rotation can be the hip referring pain downward, which is one reason we screen the hip on every knee case. And a stiff, swollen, hot knee with no obvious cause is a medical question, not a mechanics question.
The exam is how we tell them apart. Where exactly it hurts, what loads it (a single-leg squat, a step-down, a hop, a hip impingement test), how the hip and ankle move, and how the training load changed in the weeks before it started. Most of the time that is enough to name the problem and start treating it in the same hour. When it is not, that is what a referral for imaging is for, and we would rather send you for one than guess.
Questions
Straight answers
Can a chiropractor help with runner's knee?
Often, yes, if the chiropractor treats the whole leg and not just the kneecap. Runner's knee (patellofemoral pain) is pain around or behind the kneecap that flares with running, stairs, squats, and long sitting. The current international consensus recommends exercise therapy combining hip and knee strengthening, and specifically does not recommend joint mobilization on its own. That is how we approach it: assess hip control and running or squat mechanics, calm the irritated tissue, then load the hip and quad progressively so the joint tolerates more.
Can a chiropractor help with IT band syndrome?
Yes, though not by rubbing the band. Anatomy studies show the IT band is anchored to the femur and does not roll over the bone as most people picture; the pain likely comes from compressing sensitive tissue underneath it at the outside of the knee. The fix is upstream: hip abductor strength, running mechanics, and load management. In one small study, most runners were back to running after six weeks of hip strengthening. Cupping or IASTM can settle the tissue while that work happens.
What is hip impingement, and can chiropractic help?
Hip impingement (FAI syndrome) is early contact between the ball of the femur and the rim of the socket, from the shape of one or both. Think deep groin ache after sitting, or a pinch deep in a squat. Rehab that improves hip strength, control, and movement patterns is one of the recognized treatment options, and it is the work we do here. We do not force the hip into the range that pinches. Cases with labral or cartilage damage may need a surgeon, and we will say so.
How long does IT band syndrome take to heal?
Weeks, not days, and it depends on how long you ran on it before addressing the cause. In one small Stanford case series of injured runners, 22 of 24 were back to pain-free running after a six-week hip strengthening program. That is one reasonable shape to expect, not a promise: symptoms settle first with load management and hands-on care, then the strength work continues so they stay settled. Cases ignored for months, or that keep flaring on return, take longer.
Should I foam roll my IT band?
You can, but it will not fix the problem. The IT band is thick connective tissue anchored along the femur. Rolling it feels productive, but the tissue that hurts sits underneath it, and the anatomy suggests it is being compressed already, so rolling hard right over the sore spot is unlikely to help and can flare it. If rolling feels good, roll the tensor fasciae latae at the front of the hip and the glutes, keep it brief, and put the real effort into hip strength and running mechanics.
What knee and hip conditions do chiropractors treat?
At Next Move, the list is mechanical and overuse problems: runner's knee, IT band syndrome, patellar and quad tendinopathy, hip flexor and glute tendinopathy, hip impingement, and the stiff hip or ankle that keeps pushing load into the knee. What should not start with us: suspected ligament tears, a knee that locks or gives way, fractures, stress fractures, and hot swollen joints. Those belong with imaging or an orthopedist. If it turns out to be one of those, you leave with a referral, not a care plan.
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