4 Moves to Strengthen Your Knees

One mistake, the people with sore hurting knees make is to avoid exercise. Performing exercises, especially strength training, helps to strengthen your knees.

Here are some exercises you can do to keep your knees strong.

1. Pole walking

Walking is a great form of cardio exercise which can reduce knee pain by building your muscles so that they can reduce the pressure on your joints. To avoid pain during walking, you can try using poles for support. Do this exercise for about 45 minutes 4 times every week.

2. Foam rolling

This is a great way to work out your muscles. Most people focus on their backs and hips when doing this exercise and overlook the shins. Even if you don’t feel pain in your shins, they might contribute to your knee pain.

Put a roller around the base of your ankles and position yourself like you’re going to do a push up. Turn your toe inwards, towards your body’s mid line to expose your shin muscles. Firmly press your shins down on the foam roller and raise it gradually to your knee. Do this for 1 minute for each leg.

3. Stairs and stretch

People with knee problems can’t do high impact exercises like running. However, they can use stair-climbers which will be easy on their joints. The vertical movements also strengthen their gluteal and quad muscles. You can use the moving staircase, usually available at some gyms. Do this exercise for 30 minutes, 2 or 3 times every week.

4. Wall quad stretch

This exercise works on most muscles in the lower extremities. All you need is to find a large vertical surface, like a wall. Stand with your back facing the wall with your feet your shoulder-width apart or a little wider, then lower yourself to a lunge position so your knees are at a 90 degree angle. Hold yourself in that position for about 30 seconds and then slowly move up.

If you cannot hold for 30 seconds in squat position, then you can start with 10 seconds then build up from there. After doing this stretch for while you most likely will be able to hold for a couple of minutes in squat position.

Knee pain can make it difficult to perform certain exercises. However, instead of giving up, you can perform these exercises in addition to getting help from a health professional.

Exercising regularly can give your health these additional surprising benefits. The key is get good advise form professionals and be persistent.

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