Part of Patellar tendinopathy
Does jumper's knee affect a teenager's growth?
Warning signs, and when to get help
Does jumper's knee affect a teenager's growth?
Parents asking this are nearly always asking one specific thing, so let us take it first: will this make my child shorter. No evidence says it will.
The question runs two separate worries together, and separating them is the only way to answer either. One is about final height and the bones that determine it. The other is about the growing knee itself, where the answer is yes in a narrow and visible sense, and where the honest version is more useful than blanket reassurance.
Before any of that, one correction about what is usually hurting. In a teenager who is still growing, pain below the kneecap is more often coming from a growth area where the tendon attaches than from the tendon in between. Jumper's knee or Osgood-Schlatter in a teenager sets out how the spots are told apart. That matters here, because the structure that is irritated is the heart of the growth question.
Which growth center is irritated, and which one sets final height
Two different things in a growing leg get called growth areas, and the difference is most of the answer.
A growth plate is cartilage near the end of a long bone. The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons describes growth plates as areas of cartilage located near the ends of bones, sitting between the end of the bone and the widened part of its shaft, and says the growth plate helps determine the future length and shape of the mature bone. When a child is fully grown, those plates harden into solid bone. That is the structure that governs how long the shin ends up.
The structure involved in these knee conditions is an attachment point. Ladenhauf and colleagues (2020) describe Osgood-Schlatter disease as a traction apophysitis of the tibial tubercle: a growth area at the bony bump where the kneecap tendon pulls on the front of the shin. Sinding-Larsen-Johansson is the same kind of traction problem at the kneecap end (Wilczynski and colleagues, 2024). These are irritated attachments under repeated pull.
The two sit close together, and the same source says so plainly. The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons describes the tibial tubercle as a bony bump covering the growth plate at the end of the shin bone, notes that some growth plates serve as attachment points for tendons, and says that in some children the repeated pull on the tubercle leads to irritation of the growth plate. So the growth area is involved, and irritation is the word the source uses for what happens to it.
What none of the sources we read describes is that irritation damaging the growth plate, shortening the shin bone or changing how tall a child ends up. The circumstances in which a growing bone does end up shorter or crooked are growth plate fractures, a different injury altogether, and even there the same source says most heal without any lasting effect, with a bony bridge stunting growth described as rare and overgrowth also possible.
Will it make my child shorter?
No evidence shows that it will, and it is worth being precise about what sort of statement that is.
It is not the same as a trial that measured adult height in teenagers who had Osgood-Schlatter and in teenagers who did not, and found no difference. We have not found such a study, and we are not going to imply one exists. What there is instead is a set of consistent facts that point the same way: the problem is a traction apophysitis, an irritated attachment under repeated pull, described as mostly self limiting, with conservative management succeeding in over 90 percent of patients (Ladenhauf and colleagues, 2020); the lasting change the guidance does describe is the shape of the bump rather than the length of the bone; and the organization that publishes the main patient guidance states that continued participation in activity will not cause long-term damage to the knee, while adding that a child who is limping or in a lot of pain at rest may need to cut back for a short time. A limp that has just appeared is the one thing to act on rather than read about, and it needs a doctor the same day.
There is also a claim circulating on health and physiotherapy pages that the pull of jumper's knee disrupts normal growth of the lower part of the kneecap. We have not been able to find a source for it, and we are not repeating it. It reads like an answer to the height question and it is not one.
One exception belongs next to that answer rather than further down the page. Growth at this spot can be disturbed, but by an injury rather than by the overuse condition: the rare fracture where the bump pulls away from the shin, and the operation that fixes it, can stop growth early at the front of the shin's growth plate and leave the knee bending slightly backward (Bailey and colleagues, 2020). It is uncommon, it changes the shape of the knee rather than a child's height, and it is covered in full further down.
So the answer to give an anxious parent is this. Nothing in the evidence suggests your child will be shorter because of a sore knee, nobody has measured that directly, and the realistic cost of this condition is months of a knee that hurts during sport rather than a permanent change to the child.
The bump that does keep growing
Here is the one lasting change that is well documented, and it is about shape rather than growth.
The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons notes that the prominence of the tubercle will persist and may increase in size until the child is finished growing. In plain terms, the bony bump below the kneecap often stays for life, and it may get more noticeable during the growing years even as the pain settles. Many adults who had this as teenagers can still feel the bump on one or both knees and never think about it.
That is not the knee being damaged, and a bump becoming slightly more prominent over a year of growth is not a sign that the condition is winning. It also means a bump cannot be used as a progress measure, which is worth knowing because parents understandably watch it.
A lump that behaves differently is a separate matter. Soft rather than bony, somewhere else around the knee or thigh, new, or growing quickly. That needs a doctor within a day or two and has its own line on the warning list at the foot of this page, with the other symptoms to look for alongside it. The distinction is not subtle once you know to make it: the familiar hard bump at the shin is expected, and anything else that is growing is not.
Is it safe to keep playing?
Usually yes, and the statement people most want is given explicitly in the guidance.
The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons says it is important to know that continued participation in activity will not cause long-term damage to the knee, and that it is safe for children to participate in activities as tolerated. It adds that a child who is limping or has a lot of pain even at rest may need to cut back for a short time. A review of treatments in children and adolescents with patellar tendon related pain reached a practical version of the same position: include load modification and advise a return to sport based on symptoms (Cairns and colleagues, 2018).
One exception sits on top of that reassurance and is not covered by it. A limp that has just appeared in a growing child is a presenting sign of several other problems, including a slipped growth plate at the top of the thigh bone, which is felt in the knee rather than the hip. A new limp needs a doctor the same day, as the warning list below sets out, and it is not something to manage with less training.
In practice, playing on means playing less of what hurts, for a while, rather than taking the season off. Our pain monitoring model guide explains the next morning check that tells you whether a week's load was reasonable, and it works as well for a 14 year old as for an adult.
When does it stop?
Growth usually ends it, which is why the age matters more than the treatment.
The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons says most symptoms disappear completely when a child completes the adolescent growth spurt, around age 14 for girls and age 16 for boys, and that pain may continue at some level until the growth plate closes. Ladenhauf and colleagues (2020) describe it as a mostly self limiting condition of the tibial tubercle in young active patients whose growth plates are still open, with operative treatment reserved for disabling symptoms that persist after the growth plate has closed.
For Sinding-Larsen-Johansson, the scoping review reported positive outcomes within two to eight months with treatment focused mainly on limiting the activity that provokes it, while being candid that the evidence comes largely from case studies and is limited and often conflicting (Wilczynski and colleagues, 2024).
That timeline is a comfort and a warning in equal parts. It will probably end. It will probably not end this month, and our Osgood-Schlatter disease page carries the follow-up figures for the minority who still have pain two years on. A family planning around a season rather than a fortnight will be less disappointed.
Why the better jumpers are the ones who get it
This surprises people, and it is one of the better documented findings in the field.
Visnes and colleagues (2013) followed 150 elite volleyball players aged 16 to 18 over five years. Twenty-eight developed jumper's knee. Among the males, those who went on to develop it had jumped higher at the start than those who stayed symptom free, 38.0 cm against 34.6 cm on a counter movement jump, with no difference in a standing jump. The odds of developing it rose with each extra centimeter of that jump. The authors titled the paper a paradox for good reason: natural jumping ability was a risk factor.
Who those players were matters before anyone draws a conclusion. They were elite volleyball students, and the finding describes a group rather than predicting anything about one child. How common the condition is rests on a similar population: in national level athletes in Norway, current jumper's knee was found in 14.2 percent overall, 44.6 percent of volleyball players and 31.9 percent of basketball players, with no cases at all in road cycling or orienteering (Lian and colleagues, 2005). Those are elite adults, and the numbers say nothing about a 14 year old at a local club.
What it is useful for is the conversation at home. A knee like this is not a sign of a weak or badly built child, and it tends to find the ones who jump well and jump often. The variable to manage is how much, not whether your child is cut out for the sport.
What a tendon is doing while a teenager grows
One piece of biology gets quoted loosely in this area, so here it is with its limits attached.
Heinemeier and colleagues (2013) used carbon from nuclear bomb testing as a dating method in human tendon. They found that the carbon-14 levels in the tendon core reflected atmospheric levels present during roughly the first 17 years of life, indicating that the core of the tendon is formed during height growth and is essentially not renewed afterwards. Muscle, measured in the same study, showed continuous turnover.
That was measured in the Achilles tendon. Nobody has done this in the patellar tendon, and the finding must not be restated as though they had. Taken for what it is, it is a general statement about human tendon: the core is laid down in the growing years and does not get replaced the way muscle does.
What should a parent do with that? Not much, honestly, and that is the right answer. It is not a reason to push a child into more loading during the growth spurt, because no study has shown that doing so builds a better tendon, and it is not a reason to protect them from sport either. It is background that explains why tendons are slow to change at any age, which is why the adult patellar tendinopathy program is measured in months.
The rare injury worth knowing about
This is the serious thing that belongs on a page about growing knees. It is rare, and it can happen at either end of the tendon.
The trigger is what you need from this section, so it comes before the figures. A pop, snap or single moment of severe pain at the bump, or at the bottom tip of the kneecap, during a jump, a landing or a sprint. If your child then cannot straighten the knee, cannot lift the leg out straight, cannot put weight on it, or the knee swells quickly, keep the weight off the leg and go to an emergency department straight away, not later the same day.
If they felt the pop but can still straighten the knee and walk, it still needs medical advice that day, because a smaller version of the same break, at either end, does not always stop a child walking. Both lines are on the warning list below in full. A history of Osgood-Schlatter disease may make this more likely, which is why a parent of a child who has had it should know the signs.
A growing knee can also fail at the other end of the same tendon, and this is the part parents are rarely told. Cartilage and bone can pull away from the bottom tip of the kneecap, which is called a patellar sleeve fracture, and it threatens the straightening mechanism in the same way while being easy to miss (Bailey and colleagues, 2020). The x-ray point is the one to hold on to here: plain films usually show no fragment at all, the only clue being a kneecap sitting higher than it should, so the diagnosis is missed often enough for the authors to say so (Boushnak and colleagues, 2020). A child who still cannot straighten the knee after a normal first x-ray needs to be seen again rather than sent home with reassurance.
The figures come next, for the parent who wants them. The bump at the top of the shin can pull away from the bone, which is called a tibial tubercle avulsion fracture. It has been put at between 0.4 and 2.7 percent of all injuries involving growth areas, a figure the authors who quote it say is itself uncertain, because this injury is counted differently from one study to the next (Dalla Rosa Nogales and Nogales Zafra, 2019). We traced that range back and it is handed on from one single case report to the next rather than coming from a study that counted these injuries across a population, so take it as an order of magnitude and nothing finer. Rare is the part that is solid. Cole and colleagues (2020) describe it as a rare injury typically seen in boys taking part in sports involving jumping or sprinting, and give the anatomical reason it happens where it does: the growth plate at the top of the shin closes in a sequence running from the inner and back part toward the outer and front part, which leaves the tubercle at the front vulnerable while the rest has already hardened.
Outcomes when it does happen are generally good. A systematic review of 23 articles covering 336 of these fractures, with a mean age at surgery of 14.6 years, found return to pre-injury activity and recovery of knee range of motion both at 98 percent, with compartment syndrome occurring in 3.57 percent and an overall complication rate of 28.3 percent (Pretell-Mazzini and colleagues, 2016). Those are surgical figures and the decisions behind them belong to a surgical team, not to a web page.
That complication rate is the number a parent will stare at, so here is what it was made of. The commonest complication by some distance, 55.8 percent of them, was taking a screw or a pin back out because it had become sore under the skin. Tenderness or prominence at the bump came next at 17.9 percent and the fracture breaking again at 6.3 percent. The authors' own reading was that complications turn up more often than people expect without making much difference to how the knee ends up, which is a different statement from one child in four doing badly.
Two of the figures do carry something a parent should act on. Compartment syndrome, pressure building up inside the lower leg, is part of why this injury is looked at and watched in hospital rather than at a clinic, and the warning list below now carries a line for it that applies in the hours and days after the injury or an operation, cast or no cast. Growth is the other, and it belongs on a page about growth rather than being left out of it: fixing this fracture can be complicated by growth stopping early at the front of the shin's growth plate, which leaves the knee bending slightly backward, a deformity called recurvatum (Bailey and colleagues, 2020). That is uncommon, it is a change in the shape of the knee rather than in how tall a child ends up, and it is one of the reasons a child who has had this injury stays under a surgical team until growth finishes instead of being signed off when the fracture has healed.
Whether an operation is needed is settled on x-rays and not at home. These fractures have long been sorted by how far the fragment has moved and whether it reaches the joint surface, and that is what has guided the choice between a cast and an operation, with the point of fixing it being to restore the mechanism that straightens the knee and the joint surface itself (Cole and colleagues, 2020). In the review above, the surgical cases were almost all open reduction and internal fixation, 98 percent of them. A smaller one that leaves a child walking is not a smaller problem a parent can wait out, because the difference between the two is on the x-ray rather than in how it feels.
What helps a growing knee
Three things, and none of them is a product.
Two cautions come before all three, because they decide whether the three apply to your child at all. No evidence supports any specific type of exercise in this age group (Cairns and colleagues, 2018), so a program is a sensible framework rather than a proven protocol, and a child or teenager with pain below the kneecap should be assessed before beginning one. And if your child has had an operation on this knee, or a break where the bump pulled away from the shin or where cartilage and bone pulled away from the bottom of the kneecap, ask the surgical team before starting anything here and follow the plan they gave you instead.
Managing the load is the first and does most of the work: fewer of the sessions and drills that provoke it for a period, rather than stopping sport altogether, with the return guided by symptoms (Cairns and colleagues, 2018). Strength work for the thigh and hip is the second, and the program for that belongs on the Osgood-Schlatter disease page rather than here, started at a level a clinician who has examined your child has set. Time is the third, and it is the one nobody can shorten.
A strap worn below the kneecap is sometimes suggested as an extra, and do patellar tendon straps and braces help jumper's knee covers what the evidence for that actually shows. It is a comfort measure, not a treatment, and never a reason to keep playing on a knee that is getting worse.
If the pain is at the back of the heel rather than the knee, Sever's disease is the heel version of the same problem, and if the ache is spread around or behind the kneecap rather than at a single spot, patellofemoral pain is the more likely explanation.
Red flags in a growing knee
The warning list at the foot of this page is the part that changes what happens next, so read it rather than skimming it.
Four patterns matter most. The first is a pop, snap or moment of severe pain at the bump, or at the bottom tip of the kneecap, during jumping, landing or sprinting: an emergency department straight away if your child then cannot straighten the knee, cannot lift the leg out straight, cannot put weight on it, or the knee swells quickly, and a doctor the same day even if they can still straighten it and walk on it. The second is a new limp, or hip, groin or thigh pain alongside the knee pain, which needs a doctor the same day.
The third is pain that wakes your child at night, pain at rest that keeps getting worse, or knee pain that is there all the time rather than arriving with running, jumping and playing. That needs a doctor within a day or two, and sooner if it comes with looking pale, unusual tiredness, unexplained fevers, easy bruising or weight loss: their cancer team the same day if your child is being treated for cancer now, and emergency services or an emergency department if there is also a rash that does not fade when you press it. The fourth is a lump or swelling around the knee or thigh that keeps growing and is not that hard bump just below the kneecap, and it carries the same timing as the third.
The night pain and growing lump lines sit here, among a lot of reassurance, for one reason. A sore growth area is load related: use brings it on and rest quiets it down. Pain that does the opposite, waking a child, there at rest, worse week by week whatever the training does, is not behaving like a growth area at all, and it needs looking at even when the likeliest explanation turns out to be harmless. That is not a reason to be frightened of a sore knee. It is the one piece of filtering a parent can usefully do at home.
When to see a physio or a doctor
Have the knee examined before you act on anything, including anything written here. An examination settles which structure is sore, checks the hip and the rest of the leg, and takes the history that picks up the problems the warning list exists for.
The NHS puts the threshold at a few weeks of knee pain that is not improving, and in many places you can see a physiotherapist without a referral. Go sooner for any of the warning signs below, within the time each one gives.
A good appointment gives you more than a label. A clinician can tell you how much sport this knee can take this month, what to change about the training week, and what to expect over the next year, which is usually the information a worried parent actually came for. None of this is a diagnosis or advice for your child. It is what the evidence supports about growth, and where that evidence runs out.
Related exercise programs
Warning signs
Get emergency help now
- A sudden sharp pain, pop or snap at the bottom tip of the kneecap or below it while jumping, landing or sprinting, and then your child cannot straighten the knee, lift the leg out straight or put weight on it, or the knee swells quickly. Keep the weight off the leg and go to an emergency department straight away. This can be a break where the bump at the top of the shin pulls away (tibial tubercle avulsion fracture), which is treated in hospital and is often fixed with an operation. In a growing knee the same kind of injury can happen at the other end of the tendon, where cartilage and bone pull away from the bottom of the kneecap (patellar sleeve fracture), and that one can look almost normal on a first X-ray, so a child who still cannot straighten the knee afterwards needs to be seen again. Both are rare, and a history of Osgood-Schlatter disease may make the shin one more likely.
- Emergency: in the hours or days after an injury to the bump below the kneecap, or after an operation on it, your child has sudden severe pain in the lower leg that is much worse than you would expect, especially with a bandage, a cast or a brace on. It may come with a tight, swollen leg, pain that gets worse when the muscle is stretched, numbness, pins and needles or weakness. Call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away. Do not prop the leg higher than your child's hip and do not put ice on it. This can be acute compartment syndrome, which needs urgent surgery.
- Emergency: while your child is in a cast, a splint or a knee brace, their toes turn blue, white or pale, or feel cold. Do not wait to see if raising the leg helps. Go to an emergency department straight away. The cast, splint or brace may be cutting off the blood supply, or pressure may be building up inside the leg (compartment syndrome), and both need checking quickly.
- The kneecap has slipped out of place, even if it went back by itself. If it is still out of place, go to an emergency department straight away, and do not drive yourself. If it went back by itself, get medical advice the same day.
- Pain that wakes your child at night, pain at rest that keeps getting worse, knee pain that is there all the time rather than coming with running, jumping and playing, or a lump or swelling around the knee or thigh that keeps growing and is not the hard bump just below the kneecap. If your child also has a rash that does not fade when you press it, call emergency services or go to an emergency department.
Get help now, day or night
- While your child is in a cast, a splint or a knee brace, the pain is getting worse or the cast, splint or brace feels too tight, or their toes feel numb, tingle, burn or sting or look more swollen. Contact the team that fitted it straight away, whatever the time, and take your child to an urgent care center or emergency department if you cannot reach them. If it is a brace or a splint with straps, loosen the straps but keep it on. Do not prop the leg higher than your child's hip and do not put ice on it, because if pressure is building up inside the lower leg both of those cut down the blood reaching the lower leg and foot. If your child cannot move their toes on their own, the pain is severe even after painkillers, or the numbness, tingling, burning or swelling has not settled within 30 minutes, take them straight to an emergency department instead of waiting to reach anyone. Swelling under a cast, a splint or a brace can press on the nerves and on the blood supply (OrthoInfo, Care of Casts and Splints).
Get help today
- Same day: your child or teenager is still growing and has a limp, or pain in the hip, groin or thigh as well as the knee. Get an urgent appointment with a doctor the same day, and keep them off sport and these exercises until they have been checked. If they cannot put weight on the leg, have a high temperature or feel very unwell, go to an emergency department. Some hip problems in growing children and teenagers, such as a slipped growth plate at the top of the thigh bone (slipped capital femoral epiphysis), are felt in the knee and need checking quickly.
- Same day: your child felt a pop, a snap or one moment of severe pain at the bump, or at the bottom tip of the kneecap, while jumping, landing or sprinting, but can still straighten the knee and walk on it. Get medical advice the same day, and keep them off sport and these exercises until the knee has been checked. A smaller version of the same break, at the top of the shin or at the bottom of the kneecap, does not always stop a child walking, so a pop that settles into soreness is still worth a doctor looking at that day. If the knee swells up within a few hours, or your child stops being able to straighten it fully or to put weight on it, do not wait for that appointment: go to an emergency department. A first X-ray that looks normal does not rule this out, so if your child still cannot fully straighten the knee afterwards, go back and say so.
- The pain started with a fall, a twist or a blow to the knee, or you cannot put weight on the leg. Get medical advice the same day. If the knee has changed shape, swelled up very quickly or you felt a pop or snap, or your foot turns cold, pale or blue or you have tingling or no feeling in the leg or foot, go to an emergency department straight away, and do not drive yourself.
- The knee is hot, red and swollen, or you have knee pain with a high temperature or feel hot, cold or shivery. Get medical advice the same day, and go to an emergency department if you feel very unwell. This can be a sign of infection in the joint, which needs treatment quickly. In a child, bone pain with a fever can be a bone infection, which needs treatment quickly. If you have a very high or very low temperature, shivering you cannot control, you are breathing very fast or finding it hard to breathe, you are confused or your speech is slurred, your skin, lips or tongue look blue, gray, pale or blotchy (on brown or black skin this can be easier to see on the palms of the hands or soles of the feet), or you have a rash that does not fade when you press it, call emergency services, as this can be sepsis.
- The knee locks and you cannot straighten it, or it keeps giving way under you. Get medical advice the same day, and keep off sport and these exercises until the knee has been checked. Hold the rail on stairs and take care on uneven ground until then. Giving way is not part of Osgood-Schlatter disease, and a knee that gives way without warning is how people fall.
- The knee swells up with no clear reason, especially if you take medicine to thin your blood. Get medical advice the same day.
- Pain that wakes your child at night, pain at rest that keeps getting worse, knee pain that is there all the time rather than coming with running, jumping and playing, or a lump or swelling around the knee or thigh that keeps growing and is not the hard bump just below the kneecap. If your child is being treated for cancer now, contact their cancer team the same day.
- Same day: a new mark, blister or sore on your child's skin where the cast, splint or brace sits, skin around it that turns red or raw, a brace that rubs or slips, or a cast that cracks, goes soft or gets wet. Get it looked at by the team that fitted it the same day, and do not pad it, line it or trim it yourself.
- Same day: your child has had an operation on this knee, or is in a cast, a splint or a brace after one, and now has a high temperature or feels hot, cold or shivery, the pain under the cast or dressing is getting worse rather than settling, or the cast, splint or dressing becomes stained, damp with fluid or smells unpleasant. Contact their surgical team or fracture clinic the same day, and get urgent medical advice if you cannot reach them. A cast hides the wound, so a fever, pain that is climbing again, or a stain or a smell may be the only sign of an infection around the repair. If your child is very unwell, go to an emergency department.
Book an appointment
- Pain that wakes your child at night, pain at rest that keeps getting worse, knee pain that is there all the time rather than coming with running, jumping and playing, or a lump or swelling around the knee or thigh that keeps growing and is not the hard bump just below the kneecap. See a doctor within a day or two. Ask for an urgent appointment rather than the next routine one, and say what the pain does at night and whether a lump is getting bigger. Do the same if the pain comes with looking pale, unusual tiredness, fevers with no clear cause, bruising or bleeding easily, or weight loss. Bone pain that is worse at night, or a new lump, needs checking to rule out rarer causes such as a bone tumor or a blood cancer (leukemia).
- Your child's knee stays swollen, or they also have swollen, warm or painful joints elsewhere, joint stiffness that is worst in the morning, or back pain. This is not an emergency, but see a doctor in the next week or two, as it can be a sign of arthritis in children (juvenile arthritis), which is best treated early. If your child also has a red, painful eye, get it checked the same day. If light hurts the eye, the eye turns very dark red, their sight changes, or they also have a severe headache and feel sick, go to an emergency department or emergency eye service straight away. Arthritis in children can also inflame the inside of the eye (uveitis), which can harm sight if it is not treated.
Common questions
Can jumper's knee stunt growth?
There is no evidence that it does, and nobody has measured it directly. A growth plate is the cartilage near the end of a bone that, as the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons puts it, helps determine the future length and shape of the mature bone. The bony bump these conditions make sore sits over that plate at the top of the shin, and the same source says the repeated pull on the bump leads to irritation of the growth plate, which is the word it uses rather than damage. In the research the problem is called a traction apophysitis of the tibial tubercle (Ladenhauf and colleagues, 2020). The situations in which a growing bone does end up shorter or crooked are growth plate fractures, a different injury, and even there the same source says most heal without lasting effect. At this particular spot the injury that can do it is the rare fracture where the bump pulls away from the shin: fixing that can be complicated by growth stopping early at the front of the plate, leaving the knee bending slightly backward (Bailey and colleagues, 2020), which is a change in the shape of the knee rather than in final height. Nothing we read describes jumper's knee, Osgood-Schlatter or Sinding-Larsen-Johansson changing final height. Say that as what it is: no evidence of harm to height, rather than a study that measured adult height in these children and found none.
Does jumper's knee mean you are growing?
It often means your child is in the growth spurt years, and that is as far as it goes. These conditions cluster in that window: Osgood-Schlatter has a well documented peak in boys aged 12 to 15 (Ladenhauf and colleagues, 2020), Sinding-Larsen-Johansson is reported mainly in physically active adolescents aged 9 to 17 (Wilczynski and colleagues, 2024), and the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons says most Osgood-Schlatter symptoms disappear completely once the adolescent growth spurt is finished, around age 14 for girls and 16 for boys. So a sore knee of this kind is consistent with a growing skeleton under load. It is not a measure of how much growth is left, it does not predict adult height, and a child who does not get it is not growing any less.
Will the bump below my child's knee go away?
Usually not completely. The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons notes that the prominence of the tubercle will persist and may increase in size until the child is finished growing. The pain generally does go, often as growth finishes, while the shape of the bump tends to stay. A bump that is slowly more noticeable during the growing years is expected and is not a sign of damage. A lump that is new, soft, somewhere else around the knee or thigh, or growing quickly is a different thing: that needs a doctor within a day or two, and the full line with the symptoms to watch for is on the warning list at the foot of this page.
Can my child keep playing sport with jumper's knee?
Usually yes, with the amount adjusted, and with one exception that matters. The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons states that continued participation in activity will not cause long-term damage to the knee and that it is safe for children to participate in activities as tolerated, while noting that a child who is limping or has a lot of pain even at rest may need to cut back for a short time. The exception is a limp that has just appeared, which needs a doctor the same day rather than a reduction in training, because a new limp in a growing child is also how other problems present, including a slipped growth plate at the top of the thigh bone that is felt in the knee. A review of treatments in this age group advises load modification and a return to sport based on symptoms (Cairns and colleagues, 2018), which is a different instruction from stopping.
References
- American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Osgood-Schlatter Disease (Knee Pain). OrthoInfo. https://www.orthoinfo.org/en/diseases--conditions/osgood-schlatter-disease-knee-pain/
- American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Growth Plate Fractures. OrthoInfo. https://www.orthoinfo.org/en/diseases--conditions/growth-plate-fractures/
- Ladenhauf HN, Seitlinger G, Green DW. Osgood-Schlatter disease: a 2020 update of a common knee condition in children. Current Opinion in Pediatrics. 2020;32(1):107-112. https://doi.org/10.1097/MOP.0000000000000842
- Wilczynski B, Taraszkiewicz M, de Tillier K, Bialy M, Zorena K. Sinding-Larsen-Johansson disease. Clinical features, imaging findings, conservative treatments and research perspectives: a scoping review. PeerJ. 2024;12:e17996. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.17996
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Written and checked by the PocketPhysio editorial team. Last updated 2026-10-21.
This page is general education, not a diagnosis or a personal treatment plan. See a physiotherapist or doctor for advice about your own situation.