How ‘Knees Over Toes Guy’ Cured My Lifelong Knee Pain

Ben Patrick went from small-time gym owner to internet fitness guru by helping thousands of people rehab their knees.

Life with knee pain is hell.

Fortunately for those of us suffering, there is a savior: Ben Patrick, a lean, freckled, hyper-earnest YouTube personality whose regiment of unorthodox knee-strengthening exercises have turned him into a knee rehabilitation guru. Most people know him as “Knees Over Toes Guy,” the nom de guerre that’s turned him into an internet fitness sensation.

I count myself among Patrick’s legions of followers. I’ve lived with varying levels of pain in my left knee since I injured it at 16 playing football. Ever since, my knee has produced an audible click, the sound of my patella momentarily sliding out of place, whenever I bent it past 90 degrees. The best advice doctors could offer me was to lay off high-impact movements when the pain got to be too much. I resigned myself to knee pain being an inescapable part of my existence, but Patrick’s methodology has given me hope.

“Every day, university researchers are reaching out to me and saying, ‘We want to do a study on one of your movements,’” Patrick tells me.