Growing Pains in Active Teenagers: Knee and Heel Pain Explained

If you've got a sporty 10-to-15-year-old at home who's started complaining of sore knees after football or aching heels after netball, you're not alone. These are two of the most common reasons parents bring teenagers into clinic, and in the vast majority of cases, they're not a sign of anything sinister. They're growing pains — specific, well-understood conditions that ease with the right management and almost always resolve completely once growth is finished.

Understanding what's actually happening in your child's body helps take the worry out of it, and helps you know when it's genuinely worth easing off sport versus when a bit of discomfort is fine to push through.

Why active teenagers get these pains

During growth spurts, bones lengthen faster than the muscles and tendons attached to them can stretch to keep up. This leaves tendons pulling on the bone at unusually high tension, right at the points where they attach — and in growing children, those attachment points aren't solid bone yet. They're growth plates: softer cartilage that hasn't fully hardened into adult bone. Repetitive pulling from tight, fast-growing muscles during running, jumping and kicking irritates these growth plates, causing pain, tenderness and sometimes visible swelling.

This is why growing pains cluster around specific ages and specific sports. Football, netball, basketball, gymnastics and athletics — anything involving a lot of running and jumping — are the usual triggers, simply because they load the knee and heel repeatedly.

Osgood-Schlatter disease: the knee culprit

The most common cause of knee pain in active teenagers, particularly boys aged 11–14 and girls slightly younger, is Osgood-Schlatter disease. It causes pain and often a firm, tender bump just below the kneecap, where the patellar tendon attaches to the top of the shin bone. It typically:

• Worsens with running, jumping, squatting or kneeling
• Eases with rest
• Affects one or both knees
• Comes on gradually rather than after a specific injury

It's not dangerous and doesn't cause long-term joint damage, but it can be genuinely painful during flare-ups and does need managing sensibly rather than ignoring completely.

Sever's disease: the heel culprit

The heel equivalent is Sever's disease (calcaneal apophysitis), affecting the growth plate at the back of the heel where the Achilles tendon attaches. It's the most common cause of heel pain in children aged around 8–13, often those who play a lot of running or jumping sports. Typical signs include:

• Pain at the back or sides of the heel, worse during and after activity
• A tendency to limp after sport, even if walking is fine day-to-day
• Tenderness when the heel is squeezed from both sides
• Pain that's often worse when starting a new season or increasing training

Like Osgood-Schlatter, it settles as the growth plate matures and fuses, usually by the mid-teens.

Managing it without stopping sport altogether

The instinct for many parents is either to push through completely or stop sport entirely, and neither is usually right. The goal is load management — keeping your teenager active while keeping symptoms controlled:

• Adjust, don't eliminate. Reducing training volume or intensity during a flare-up, rather than stopping outright, usually keeps symptoms manageable while maintaining fitness and enjoyment of sport.
• Ice after activity. 10–15 minutes of ice on the sore area after training can reduce pain and irritation.
• Stretch tight muscles. Tight quadriceps and calves increase the pull on these growth plates. Gentle, consistent stretching of the quads and hamstrings for Osgood-Schlatter, and calves for Sever's, genuinely helps.
• Build strength around the area. A graded, age-appropriate strengthening programme — the kind covered in strength and conditioning work — improves how load is absorbed through the leg and often reduces symptoms over a season, rather than just masking them.
• Supportive footwear matters. Well-cushioned trainers with good heel support make a noticeable difference for Sever's disease in particular.

Both conditions are self-limiting — they resolve once the growth plate fuses, usually somewhere between 14 and 16 depending on the individual. The pain isn't a sign of damage happening; it's inflammation from mechanical overload on a growth plate, and it doesn't leave lasting problems.

When it's worth getting it checked

Most growing pains can be managed at home with the approach above, but it's worth seeking an assessment if:

• Pain is severe enough to cause a consistent limp, even at rest
• One knee or heel is significantly more swollen, red or warm than the other
• Pain wakes your teenager at night
• Symptoms aren't improving despite several weeks of reduced load and stretching
• You're not confident it's growing pains rather than a different injury (a twist, a fall, a specific traumatic moment)

A physiotherapist can confirm the diagnosis, rule out other causes of knee or heel pain, and build a tailored plan that keeps your teenager training as much as is comfortable rather than sidelined for months unnecessarily. This kind of assessment and rehab planning is a core part of physiotherapy, and for teenagers competing regularly, our sports and athlete physiotherapy service is geared specifically towards keeping young athletes playing safely through periods of rapid growth.

If your teenager's knee or heel pain isn't settling with sensible rest and stretching, or you'd simply like reassurance and a proper management plan, we're happy to help at our Vauxhall clinic — book an assessment and we'll get them back to full training with confidence.