What We Treat

Hip & Knee Pain treatment in North Liberty.

The knee that hurts is often the joint doing somebody else’s job. One cause-first evaluation is how you find out which joint that is.

Stairs Arthritis Getting out of the car Book My Free Consult

Sound Familiar?

Does this sound like you?

  • You take the stairs one at a time, and always lead with the same leg
  • Getting up off a low couch needs a hand on the armrest
  • A pinch in the hip crease every time you swing out of the car
  • The first hundred steps of the morning are the worst hundred of the day
  • You stopped kneeling in the garden, and you tell yourself it’s the ground
  • You did quad sets in a previous round of PT and the joint still complains

Two or more? Then the joint that hurts may not be the joint to fix.

Why It Happens

The knee that hurts is often not the problem.

Hips and knees share muscles, nerves, and the same job of absorbing your body weight. When the hip stops rotating, the knee twists instead. When one glute stays quiet, the knee tracks off line thousands of times a day. Even a small difference in leg length loads one side harder than the other. So one joint wears, and the other one gets the blame. Arthritis is real, and how you load the joint still changes how much it hurts.

If you already did physical therapy and the quad sets didn’t hold, this is usually why. The exercise was aimed at the sore knee, not the hip feeding it. Natalie Johnston, MPT, has 24 years and a fellowship in pain sciences, and she starts by finding the driver. You have already read everything, and already tried the thing that didn’t work. That is exactly the kind of patient who does well here. Keep offloading one side, though, and the other side starts sending its own bill.

A woman sitting on a sofa holding her knee with both hands

The Honest Truth

Waiting doesn’t make it wait on you.

If you keep waiting

  • The rest of your body starts compensating, and the compensations start hurting too
  • Flare-ups get closer together, and take longer to settle each time
  • You move less to avoid the pain, which weakens the exact things that were protecting you

If you start this week

  • Visit one is a cause-first evaluation, and you leave knowing what we found
  • Hands-on treatment starts the same day, not after a second appointment
  • You get a plan with an endpoint: a real one, not an open tab of visits

Nobody regrets starting too early. Plenty of people tell us they wish they had come in sooner.

How We Fix It

The same four phases. Built for your hip and knee.

Every plan has an endpoint. Here’s what the four phases look like for a hip and a knee.

Weeks 1–2

Pain

Settle the joint down.

Hands-on manual therapy and, where it fits, dry needling take pressure off the irritated tissue, starting your first visit.

Weeks 2–6

Prime

Get the hip moving again.

Mobility work restores the rotation and extension your knee has been substituting for.

Weeks 6–10

Perform

Strong through the whole step.

Glute and quad strengthening gets loaded the way you actually move: on stairs, out of chairs, and on one leg.

Weeks 10+

Prevent

Keep it, including at yoga.

Walking mechanics and stairs get tested under real load, and you leave knowing which positions to keep and which to skip. That’s the endpoint.

Natalie was always prompt, friendly, and prepared for my appointments. The therapy helped to significantly reduce my knee pain. Natalie gave me a reasonable amount of exercises to do at home. I do yoga regularly, so she gave me suggestions of what to do and not to do at yoga. I would highly recommend Motion Matters!

Shared by Barbara H. · Treated for knee pain

Before: stairs one at a time, always leading with the same leg

After: down the stairs without deciding which foot goes first

Hip & Knee Pain All four phases

Related Conditions

Pain rarely stays in one place.

Compensation patterns show up next door. Here’s what else we treat.

1

Back Pain & Sciatica

Both hands on the counter to get all the way upright.

Learn More 2

Plantar Fasciitis

The first steps out of bed that you already dread the night before.

Learn More 3

Post-Operative Rehab

Rebuilding after a joint replacement or a repair, one phase at a time.

Learn More

Questions, Answered

What people ask before booking for hip and knee pain.

Usually not, and it’s rarely the first step. Joint wear shows up on images of people who have no pain at all, so a scan doesn’t tell us what is driving yours. We start with a cause-first evaluation, one-on-one with a licensed physical therapist, and we check the hip when the knee is the complaint. If imaging turns out to be genuinely necessary, we’ll help you get it.

Usually yes, and the right amount of loading is what keeps a joint healthy. Hurt doesn’t always mean harm, and avoiding stairs entirely leaves the leg weaker and the next flare worse. What matters is the dose and the mechanics. A licensed physical therapist sets both at your evaluation, then progresses them with you, one-on-one, every visit.

A full plan for hip and knee pain runs through all four phases, Pain, Prime, Perform, and Prevent. How long that takes depends on how long the joint has been compensating, so we won’t guess at a number before we’ve evaluated you. What you get either way is a plan with an endpoint. You’ll always know which phase you’re in and what’s left, instead of an open-ended string of appointments.

Book Your Visit

Ready when you are.

Request a time and a real person calls you back. No phone tree. No ‘someone will reach out.’ Just a plan.

  • Hours Mon-Fri: 8:00 am - 5:00 pm
  • (319) 382-2743 Prefer to talk now? Call us.
  • No referral needed in Iowa

4.9 · 79 Google reviews

Typical response: under 2 business hours

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So we know who to look for when you walk in.

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Care this good, this close.

Motion Matters Physical Therapy and Wellness

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