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Asked by coops666 to Amy, Karen, Sarah, Vijay, Will on 8 Jun 2012.
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Vijay Yadav answered on 8 Jun 2012:
Very good question. For this you need to know the story of your skeleton. Till around the time of mid gestation when we are in our moms womb, entire skeleton is made of very flexible soft tissue known as cartilage. Slowly and slowly it is replaced by a hard material that is known as bone and in the adults the soft tissue remains at the joints like knee etc. This secretes a lubricant in the joint space and is supported by other structures like tendons around it so when you bent it provides the flexibility. However, dont over bend you will break your knee for sure 🙂
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Sarah Martin answered on 8 Jun 2012:
Hiya! If your knee-cap was strapped firmly to your straight leg bones, then it would indeed snap when you bend your knee! But it isn’t, it’s attached to stretchy muscles and tendons above and below, which stretch as your leg bends. You can actually gently move your knee-cap from side to side with your fingers!
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Karen Reed answered on 8 Jun 2012:
brilliant question. I’m no expert in this area but I kind of think of the knee cap as floating around on top of the joint underneath, and its held in places by stings (tendons or ligaments) which can stretch and move with the movement of the leg but keep the boney cap bit in place.
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Amy Birch answered on 9 Jun 2012:
hi coops666, our knees are specifically designed to bend so it wouldn’t be very good if they did snap! As Vijay has explained very well, the knee cap is not fixed to your bones – it is attached the tendons that can move when you move to help with flexibility.
You can dislocate your knee cap (it happened to a friend of mine playing rugby) which is very painful! This is most common in sport and can happen if the knee cap is knocked out of position or if you twist your leg in an awkward way.
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