09/10/2026
The meniscus sits between the bones of your knee.
A tear can mean pain, clicking, and catching that shuts down how active you can be.
I tore mine in 2016:
Last practice of senior-year football — dropped to the ground in agony.
Ten years later I would have called you crazy if you said I’d be moving like this.
What’s actually crazy: despite years of evidence, more than 500,000 arthroscopic meniscectomies are still performed in the U.S. each year — roughly $4 billion — even though landmark trials (including sham-surgery research from 2013) found no meaningful benefit over conservative care and partial removal can raise osteoarthritis risk compared with leaving the tissue alone.
It often takes about 17 years for new evidence to change clinical practice.
Here’s what I did instead, for a decade:
Train the knee to flex, extend, and stabilize.
Train the ankles and hips to flex and extend with it.
That’s it! This looked like:
• Reverse-treadmill work to warm up knee extension
• Active ROM work to restore flexion and extension
• Strengthening all positions from bodyweight to load
• Ankle strength with the knee straight and bent
• Hip strength in flexion and extension, loaded and unloaded
Boring. Repeatable. Ten years of it.
That is what changed my knees.
Comment MENISCUS and I’ll send my master document with the literature on managing many meniscus issues without surgery, plus 20+ lower-body progressions I use — inspired by Ben Patrick and the Athletic Truth Group.
Not every tear is the same. Locked knees, certain traumatic patterns alongside failed rehab still deserve a surgical conversation.
For a lot of people, though, the first move should be a serious, progressive plan — not a scope by default.
Here’s to a greater pursuit of truth! 🧪🫡🙏
If you’re someone responsible for the physical well being of ANYONE it behooves you to get your Level 1 ATG Exercise certification thru ATG For Coaches — as a Doctor of Physical Therapy, this group gets my gold stamp of approval! 💯
