Every day you put your knees through the gauntlet, and knee strengthening exercises can help you make these daily activities easier on your knees.
Walking, running, using the stairs, bending down to pick things up, dancing in front of the mirror when you think no one is watching you… almost all of your day-to-day activities puts strain on these important joints. Add to this that your knees feel pressure equal to four times your body weight and it is understandable why knees are the most commonly injured joint of the human body. When you consider how much your knees work everyday you can see why it can be very damaging to your mobility and quality of life if your knees are hurt. Daily maintenance with knee strengthening exercises can greatly improve the health of your knees, helping to protect them from harm, or, if you already experience knee pain, act as effective knee replacement alternatives.
Knee strengthening exercises don’t focus just on the actual joint. The muscles around the knees, the hamstrings, quadriceps, abductors and adductors, provide the support structure for the joint, so keeping these strong and flexible will help reduce pain and increase range of motion. To prepare these muscles, and the knee itself, for the actual strength training, its a good idea to start with some stretching. These stretches can be as simple as a standing hamstring stretch or a sitting knee extension where you loop a towel under your foot and pull your bent knee up toward your chest for a few seconds then release. Once your muscles feel warm and loosened you can move on to the real knee strengthening exercises.
If you are strengthening your knees to ward off damage, these strengthening exercises can be more intense. However, if your knee health has already been affected and you are trying to either recover from an injury or use these as knee replacement alternatives, you should be more gentle. Even slight movements can jar an injured joint so performing strengthening exercises should be done with caution but with commitment so that the benefits can build on themselves as you progress into more difficult exercises.
Knee Strengthening Exercises: Descriptions
One subtle but very effective exercise that can begin loosening and strengthening your knees is a press, performed by sitting on a chair with your heels rested on another chair ahead of you. Using only the contraction of your thigh muscles to move the joint, slowly press the backs of your knees down toward the floor. Hold the stretch for a second and then release. To strengthen the joint from another angle, and nurture its range of motion, you can use a knee circle exercise. To do this, stand with your feet shoulder width apart and your feet firmly planted on the floor. Slightly bend your knees, lean over and put your hands on your kneecaps like you are about to do the Charleston. Using just the muscles around your knees, create small circles, going clockwise and then counter-clockwise.
Knee strengthening exercises are a great start toward protecting the health of your knees and thanking them for all the hard work they do for you every day!
