What’s up, guys?
Hey, Jared Beckstrand here, doctor of physical therapy at toneandtitan.com, and these are the best exercises to strengthen and stabilize your knee. This is part one, so let’s get into them right now!
Thank you so much for joining me today here on Tone and Titan. Let’s talk about your knees today. I hope that what I share helps you feel better and alleviates some of the pain you might be experiencing. If you do like this article, do me a favor and hit that thumbs up button down below. Also, if you haven’t done so already.
Knee Pain and Exercises
So, I’ve been getting some requests from you guys lately. Some of the comments that you’ve been leaving in my article say, “Hey, my knees hurt. What can I do about my knee pain? What are some exercises for my knee pain?” Things of that nature. I thought, “That’s a great topic for a article.” I started writing down a few of my favorite exercises and before I knew it, that list was like 12 exercises long.
I decided to break that up into two parts, so you kind of get phase one here. We’re gonna go over about five exercises, and then you’ll get phase two in a later article that are a little bit more aggressive. This is kind of the beginner phase one. Hopefully, you can progress into some of those phase two exercises. If you’re looking for maybe a little bit more aggressive exercises, check the link down below for the link to that phase two artice.
When we talk about the knee and strengthening it, I tell people, you know, the knee is a pretty dumb joint. Like, if you think about it in the grand scheme of things, your knee flexes and it extends, and that’s about all that you get. Really, when we talk about strengthening the knee joint, we talk about quads.
There are four quad muscles, three hamstring muscles, and then one of your calf muscles that crosses that knee joint and contributes to knee flexion. So, really, it’s those three muscles that we have to train. However, when we talk about stability of the knee joint and where the knee joint is in space and the biomechanics of the knee joint and why your knee is painful, it’s actually your hips and your ankles that have more of a role in where your knee goes.
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Example and Camera Check
For example, I think you guys can see that. Let me check my camera here so you can see that. Quick camera angle change. While the knee only flexes and extends, it’s actually the hip and the ankle joint that control where that knee flexes and extends. Not only do we want to strengthen the knee joint, but we also want to strengthen and stabilize the hip and the ankle joints to put that knee in better alignment. We’re going to look at the muscles of the knee: quads, hamstrings, and some hip strengthening as well. I’ve got five exercises coming your way right now.
Exercise 1: Quad Set
Our first exercise is fairly simple but very important. It’s an isometric contraction of the quads, or a quad set. Simply put, you’re going to sit with your leg out straight in front of you and then contract your quad muscle. This one right here, if I fire that, I hope you guys can see that, and then if I relax it. What I tell people is, as you’re sitting, try to push your knee down into the floor, down into the mat, whatever it is that you’re sitting on.
So, you’re going to fire that quad, push, push, push, hold for about a three to five second count, and then relax. It’s a really simple exercise but it’s really important, more of like a neural component to it, basically establishing a mind-muscle connection to that muscle so that we can fire it voluntarily as needed. That’s exercise number one, quad set. I’ll typically tell people to perform about 10 reps of about three to five second holds. If that feels good, feel free to do 20. If that still feels good, do 30. So, up to three sets of ten, five second holds on that quad set.
Exercise 2: Straight Leg Raise
Next, we’re going to take that a step further. So, that’s a great way to fire the quad. One of those quads, well, a part of one of those quads, serves to flex the hip. So, we add hip flexion to that quad set to make that contraction even better. That’s going to be a straight leg raise. Your first step is to perform that quad set.
So, hit that quad set, contract that quad, knee goes down into the floor, and then what you’re going to do helps to sit back just a little bit. So, quad set, and then we’re going to raise that leg, oh, about a foot or so, about maybe 12 inches up off of the table, and then right back down. Quad set, fire that, raise about 12 inches, and then right back down.
You’ve got to be able to maintain that quad contraction. Meaning, I want your knee to be as straight as possible. Sometimes, people will do this, they have what they call a lag to it. So, they’ll start to raise, and then the leg will come up. You’ll see that, that’s a lot different.
I want you to set that quad, fire that, and then I want you to lift that whole straight leg raise up off of the table. Fire it, lift the whole leg up, and then right back down. Same thing applies here. Shoot for 10, if 10 feels good, two sets of 10, and even up to three sets of 10 on these straight leg raises will be good.
Exercise 3: Short Arc Quad
Okay, cool. Next, let’s introduce a little bit of bend into the knee. To do that, I’m going to perform what we call a short arc quad. I’ve got a foam roll here under my knee. If you have a foam roll, that works great. If not, you can double up a pillow or a blanket or a towel or things like that, just to slip underneath your knee. All work well. So, there’s a little bit of bend in my knee, 10, maybe 15 degrees.
Now, what I’m going to do is fire that quad muscle to straighten my leg out. You’ll notice that my knee did not come up off of the foam roll. Basically, I’m just using these quad muscles to straighten my knee from that short arc, or from that 10 to 15 degrees of flexion, all the way to straight. So, it’s this small motion, but your focus is right here on that quad muscle, getting that to fire, getting that to contract.
Nice and slow up, nice and slow down. You’re going to do a set of 10 of those. If one set of 10 feels good, do 20. If that feels good, up to about 30 reps on that one. If you need more of a challenge, you can always put a small ankle weight on the end of your, down on your ankle, or perform more repetitions. So, there’s your short arc quads.
Exercise 4: Bridges
Next, so we’ve done a lot for your quad, let’s get into your hamstrings and your hips. To do that, I like to do bridges. So, I’m going to slide right down here, lay on your back with your knees bent. Now, what we’re going to do is contract the glutes, contract the hamstrings to lift our hips up towards the ceiling.
So, I’m laying down flat, glute squeeze, hamstrings contract, hold, two, three, and then come right back down. So, up, hold for about a three-second count, and then come right back down. The focus again is smashing my butt together and squeezing my hamstring muscles while I’m up in this bridge. Perform 10 of them, if 10 feels good, we’ll go up to 20, up to 30.
So, up to about three sets of ten. When that becomes easy, the maybe slightly more advanced version of this would be to get into even some single-leg bridges. I’m going to extend my left leg out, and now I’m just using my right hip and my right hamstring to lift my hips up off of the ground, to lift my pelvis up off the ground. A little bit more aggressive, requires a little bit more muscle control, a little bit more muscle contraction. It might be something that you have to work up into, but that’s a great way to get the glutes and the hamstrings firing, up to three sets of ten on those bridges.
Exercise 5: Side-Lying Abduction
Finally, we talked at the beginning of the article about hip strength and its role in stabilizing the knee. One of the primary muscle groups that I want to strengthen are those lateral hip muscles, or the hip abductors. To do that, you’re going to lay down on your side. Right now, I’m on my left side to work my right leg. Left leg is bent, right leg is out straight.
From this position, what I’m going to do is contract the muscles kind of behind my hip right here, like right on the side of my glutes, to raise that leg up towards the ceiling, and then right back down. So, it looks just like that. I tell people to lead with your heel. If you’re leading with your toe, you’re probably contracting the wrong muscle. Try to lead with your heel, and then don’t just pull it straight up, but pull it
up and back behind you. So, it actually looks a little bit more like that. I’m pulling up and back as I’m performing that leg lift to the side. Again, that’s called a side-lying abduction. I tell people to perform 10 of those. If 10 feels good, perform two sets, and if two sets of ten feels good, perform three sets of 10 on that one.
Alright, you guys, so there you have them, five great exercises to strengthen and start to stabilize that knee joint. Again, this is kind of phase one for beginners. If you’re looking for more exercises, be sure to click on phase two. Check out the description down below to see those.
I hope you enjoyed this articel, you guys. If you did, go ahead and leave me that thumbs up down below. Thanks again for doing that. Also, if you do have any comments or suggestions or questions about anything that we talked about in this article, please leave that down below as well. Hey, thank you so much for watching.
If you haven’t done so already, share the article with your friends. Right over here, there’s your phase two exercises to strengthen and stabilize that knee joint. Down in that corner, there’s one more that you might enjoy, that you might benefit from. I hope to see you again soon. Thanks You!
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