Is the leg press the best leg exercise if I have patellar tendonitis?

Although the leg press is not necessarily a bad exercise, it's probably not the best exercise if you suffer from patellar tendonitis. Although strengthening your quadriceps is important for this condition, it is important to strengthen them in concert with your hip musculature. Patellar tendonitis is a condition that can occur due to hip weakness that leads to poor knee mechanics and resulting irritaion to the patellar tendon. When performing a leg press, the quadriceps are doing most of the work and the hip musculature is not being used to it's fullest capacity due in part to the position you are in when performing a leg press (you never get your hip into full extension). Performing exercises such as ball squats with resistance around the knees or step-ups will help not only strengthen your quadriceps, but also get the hip musculature involved as you can now move your hip into a great range of motion (more hip extension). This will help in overall lower-extremity strengthening and control throughout movements that are more consistent to movements we experience in everyday life. It will be important that when perfoming these exercises, the knee stays in line with the toes to ensure proper joint mechnics.