When you climb stairs, do your knees crack or pop? It’s a disturbing sound, to say the least! You might also hear popping or crackling sounds when you squat to pick something up or do squats as an exercise. You hear a strange sound coming from your kneecaps, and you’re wondering if that means you have arthritis or another knee problem.
Should you be worried about those weird knee noises? Although it’s unsettling when your knees talk back to you, it doesn’t necessarily mean something’s wrong. You’re hearing crepitus, a popping, cracking, or crunching sound in your knees when you move them, squat down to pick something up or climb a flight of stairs. This is a common phenomenon and usually nothing to worry about.
The Causes of Knee Crepitus and Creaky Knees
Even if visions of arthritic knees come to mind when you hear those crackling and popping sounds, the most common cause is a build-up of gas bubbles in the synovial fluid inside your knee joint. Synovial fluid is a thick liquid that lubricates and nourishes the joint and helps reduce friction within the joint. When you climb a flight of stairs, lower your body into a squat or bend your knees, the fluid bubbles pop and it sounds like popping or crackling.
Crepitus can also come from your ligaments, not your cartilage. Ligaments are tough bands of tissue that connect bones. If you squat or bend your knees, they stretch a bit and then snap back into place, creating a sound. The clicking and popping can be disconcerting to some people.
More Serious Causes of Knee Crepitus
Knee crepitus usually comes from benign causes such as popping gas bubbles in the knee. However, knee arthritis can also cause grating or grinding noises when you squat or climb stairs. You hear these sounds when you bend your knees because the cartilage in your knees is damaged. Also, people who have bad knee alignment can wear down their cartilage. When the cartilage is damaged, the knee may pop and crack.
How can you distinguish less concerning causes of crepitus from arthritis or cartilage damage? One differentiating feature is pain. If you hear popping or crackling when you climb a flight of stairs and you also feel pain, get your knees checked out. The sounds could be caused by cartilage damage and arise from arthritis in the patellofemoral joint, the joint that connects your knee and thigh bones.
If your knees are popping, but you don’t feel any discomfort when you squat, climb stairs or bend your knee, it’s probably not caused by damaged cartilage. You should still see a doctor if you have any new knee symptoms. Age can also be a factor. If you’re over 50, you’re more likely to have osteoarthritis of the knee, which is the most common kind. If you’ve had a knee injury in the past, you’re more likely to develop arthritis in that knee and it can occur much earlier.
Squats May Protect Against Osteoarthritis of the Knees
Do what you can to protect your knees. You may have heard that squats are hard on your knees, but strengthening your quadriceps also has benefits. If you have crepitus, don’t give up squats as an exercise unless your doctor tells you to. If you do them with good form, they strengthen the quadriceps muscles, the muscle that runs down the front of the thighs. When this muscle is stronger, it gives your knees better support and helps keep the kneecap centered along its path. This can reduce wear and tear on the cartilage in the knee.
The key is to use good form when you squat. Learn how to do the exercise with impeccable technique to reduce the stress on your knees. Also, do exercises that strengthen the opposing muscles, the glutes, the muscles that cover your buttocks. If you experience pain or discomfort when squatting, stop. Let pain be your guide and don’t train through it.
Is Crepitus a Marker of Future Knee Arthritis?
Even if you don’t have arthritis right now, you might wonder if crepitus makes you more likely to get osteoarthritis in the future? A study that followed several thousand people without knee pain for three years found people with “noisy knees” were more likely to be diagnosed with knee arthritis over the next year – even if they didn’t have knee pain at the start of the study. If you’ve got crepitus, be gentle with your knees. Make sure you don’t overdo it with high-impact exercises because they put extra stress on your knees.
The Bottom Line
Knee pops and crackles when you climb a flight of stairs is called crepitus and it’s fairly common. Most of the time, it’s not a cause for concern, but if you have knee pain and crepitus, get evaluated by a sports medicine physician or orthopedist who can examine your knees and do imaging studies if necessary. Take care of your knees! You depend on them to help you get around. You need them to stay healthy for a long time.
References:
- MedicalNewsToday.com. “What’s to know about crepitus of the knee?”
- Arthritis.org. “Osteoarthritis”
- Pazzinatto MF, de Oliveira Silva D, Faria NC, Simic M, Ferreira PH, Azevedo FM, Pappas E. What are the clinical implications of knee crepitus to individuals with knee osteoarthritis? An observational study with data from the Osteoarthritis Initiative. Braz J Phys Ther. 2019 Nov-Dec;23(6):491-496. doi: 10.1016/j.bjpt.2018.11.001. Epub 2018 Nov 16. PMID: 30471964; PMCID: PMC6849337.
- Clin Orthop Surg. 2018 Mar; 10(1): 1-8.Published online 2018 Feb 27. doi: 10.4055/cios.2018.10.1.1
- Reuters.com. “Cracking, popping joints may foretell arthritis”
- Pazzinatto MF, de Oliveira Silva D, Azevedo FM, Pappas E. Knee crepitus is not associated with the occurrence of total knee replacement in knee osteoarthritis – a longitudinal study with data from the Osteoarthritis Initiative. Braz J Phys Ther. 2019 Jul-Aug;23(4):329-336. doi: 10.1016/j.bjpt.2018.09.009. Epub 2018 Sep 30. PMID: 30292656; PMCID: PMC6630108.
- “Knee Crepitus – Physiopedia.” .physio-pedia.com/Knee_Crepitus.
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