Quadriceps injuries, especially rectus femoris tears, are common sports injuries. If not properly rehabbed, they can persist, causing lingering strains that keep you on the sidelines. The exercises below help rebuild strength, length, and endurance in your quads so you can get back in the game.
Why Do Quad Tears Happen?
Your quadriceps are made up of four muscles – rectus femoris, vastus medialis oblique (VMO), vastus intermedius, and vastus lateralis.
The rectus femoris is unique because it crosses both your knee AND your hip. It plays a role in flexing the hip and extending the knee, but crossing two joints leaves it more vulnerable to injury.
Common movement patterns that cause rec fem tears are sprinting or kicking in soccer or quickly starting or stopping a run in tennis. In these situations, the muscle is under stretch when trying to fire, leading to an increased chance of tears.
Weakness in surrounding muscles also puts the rectus femoris at risk. If your psoas (your major hip flexor) or other quad muscles aren’t functioning at full capacity, the rec fem will overcompensate.
Common Quad Rehab Mistakes
Luckily, most of these injuries are non-op and best treated conservatively [1]. But, there are three frequent pitfalls folks fall into when it comes to recovery:
- Doing Nothing
While you should modify your activities, stopping activity altogether causes excess scar tissue formation, which increases your chance of re-injury. Instead, immediate isometric exercises can train proper alignment in healing tissue and minimize scarring.
- Passive Stretching
While lengthening the rec fem is a good principle, you’ve got to do it the right way. Just performing a classic quad stretch will go right through the path of least resistance – AKA the injured muscle and non-pliable scar tissue – for an ineffective stretch.
- Going Too Fast
Once the pain dissipates, many people hop right back into sport. While joining a pickup game might seem like no biggie, you’re asking the muscle to perform explosive movements before it’s ready, leading to recurrent injury and nagging issues like tendonitis.
You must prep the tissue with off-court training first. So let’s get into it, you can follow along here.
4 Exercises to Rehab Quadriceps Strains & Tears
Exercise 1: ASMR: Quads
This Active Self Myofascial Release technique helps address the acute stiffness that comes with a rectus femoris tear, reducing tension in the muscle group and improving healing. This creates length more effectively than passive stretching.
- Lay with foam roller under your leg, just above the knee
- Roll down, moving the roller higher up your thigh
- As you roll, bring your heel toward your butt
- Return to the start, adjusting your angle to hit different parts of the quads
- Continue for 1-2 minutes
Exercise 2: Extended Knee Ankle Fl-Ex
This exercise activates your vastus medialis and deeper vastus intermedius to help them fire in a more proportional relationship to the rec fem.
- Sit with the foam roller under your hamstring
- Slowly ramp up your quads
- Tap your VMO to get it activated
- Extend the knee
- Maintain knee extension while plantar flexing the ankle, then hold
- Maintain knee extension while dorsiflexing the ankle, then hold
- Return to neutral ankle
- Maintain quad activation while lowering your heel to the ground
- Ramp down quad contraction
Perform 2-3 reps per side with 5-10 second holds.
Exercise 3: Slumpy Psoas Activator
This move helps work the two functions of the psoas – hip flexion and lumbopelvic stabilization. Just like the exercise above, by turning your psoas on, we take pressure off your rec fem. (Learn more about psoas strengthening here.)
- Sit on a chair and hunch forward
- Flex your hip, lifting your left foot from the ground
- Bring your right arm to your left knee and press them together, activating the psoas
- Maintain this pressure while sitting up straight and finding an anterior pelvic tilt
- Hold for 5 seconds, then release
Perform 2 sets of 4-6 reps each side.
Exercise 4: Controlled Push-offs
This exercise lengthens your rectus femoris actively. It also helps integrate the VMO and psoas in a slow-mo version of the movement pattern that was likely the mechanism of injury – sprinting or running.
- Find a split stance
- Shift your weight onto your back leg
- Push off your heel and activate your quads and glutes
- Cycle your heel toward your butt, then move forward into hip flexion
- Lower your foot toward the floor and return to the start
Perform 8 reps per side, increasing reps as you’re able.
Perform this entire routine for 3-6 weeks before returning to sport after a quad injury. You’ll be more prepared and more likely to prevent re-injury and recurrent issues like quadriceps tendonitis.
You can also download the ROM Coach app for daily routines to boost your alignment, mobility, and resilience against future injuries of all types.
