♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists on the internet. ♪
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Shrupp, physical therapist,
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And we are most famous physical therapist on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob,
- Today want to show you the top 10 strengthening exercises
for painful knees.
It's tough because your knees are painful.
You don't want to do any strengthening,
but yet the strengthening can help the pain,
can help it decrease.
So we're going to try to show you exercises
you can do without increasing hopefully.
- Kind of modified or gentle strengthening.
We don't want to get too aggressive.
- By the way, if you're new to our channel,
please take a second to subscribe to us.
We provide videos how to stay healthy fit, pain-free
and we upload every day.
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today this week is our suspension straps.
And we're going to show you these later.
We're going to show you that for one of the exercises.
- Wonderful, wonderful tool.
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- Yeah, podcast.
- All right, first exercise.
This is one that everybody can do.
This is one you want to do throughout the day.
If you're somebody that sits a lot,
every half hour I would do this.
I had my sister doing this; she sits a lot,
having a lot of knee pain.
The knee does not like being in a immobile position
all day long.
- Exactly right, Bob.
- You wanna get those nutrients flowing into the knee.
- Do you want me to tell you about the example?
- Sure.
- My friend had a heart attack.
He was in, he had some knee problems, but nothing big.
He went in and they go into the femoral crease
for the artery.
He had to keep his leg stationary in bed
for a day and a half until that healed so he could move.
Day and a half, his knee was so stiff
he needed a crutch to walk.
And it took about a week and it finally loosened up.
He's back to normal, but just because no movement
for a day and a half, tighten that knee right up.
- The conventional thinking is that what it was resting,
it should be better.
- Right. - But it doesn't.
You got to get the synovial fluid going,
that's all the nutrients are in there.
So Brad's gonna show you in a chair,
I'm gonna just show you here.
Basically all you're doing is you're doing knee extensions,
one, two, three, four, five.
I usually tell them to count to where you
tighten the muscle a little bit.
- Yep, you feel those quads working.
- Right, who can't do these?
But it gives you some movement
and it gives a little bit of strength.
- And if you can't get them all the way up,
go as high as you can.
It'll get better with time.
- [Bob] And if there's a spot that it hurts,
maybe just work around that spot right now.
- You have to do what you can.
- Figure out a way to do it.
I'd say at least 10 repetitions every half hour.
My knee just cracked. - Oh yeah.
- Alright, seated straight leg raises,
this one's a little bit harder.
This one you're going to actually lean forward.
Get to the edge of the chair
and you're gonna lift up like this.
This is a little more strength.
- Now this, if you're at a table, you know,
you can hold onto the table and that'll give you
some stability. - [Bob] some leverage.
or you can put your hands down here, a little bit of help.
But what's nice about this one is
if your knee hurts when you move it,
you're strengthening without moving it.
So you're not getting them movement that we want,
but you are getting strengthening.
- That's those quads so that's important.
- Now, if you want to do some in bed before you even
got out of bed, you could do this same
straight legs while you're lying straight out on your back.
So you could put one leg up like this
to kind of support your pelvis,
and I'm just going to lift up like that.
- So this is really important, bring this leg up,
it really helps.
And notice while Bob, he's not lifting it
straight up and down, he's getting it even
with the other knee, that's a good location.
- Yeah, if you go like this,
it starts working on my back even, it's hard.
You want to do both sides.
It's amazing, I really feel that in the quad, Brad.
All right, let's go. I'm going to do the side one here.
I'm gonna go away because I'm gonna to do the same leg.
And I'm keeping the toe pointed toward the wall.
I'm not up toward the ceiling,
and I'm going to start doing off to the side,
like this hip abduction.
- You're gonna have to take the covers off
to do this one, Bob.
- [Bob] I agree.
- Otherwise it'd be pretty aggressive.
But look at the bottom leg, he has it flexed,
and that gives you a little stability,
it makes it a little easier.
- [Bob] Provides a little base.
Now you're working the hip here too, obviously,
but you're getting a little bit of knee strike tool
and the same with this one.
- The hip and the knee, they work together.
- Yeah, you want to make sure they're both strong.
If your hip is weak, it's going to affect your knees.
If your ankles weak, it's going to affect your knee,
the joint above and the joint below shape the joint
in between.
- That's why we're physical therapists, Bob,
because we understand this and we're sharing.
But look at this knee, he keeps it straight
and that focuses more on the hip extensor.
- Here we go, we get a little bit of hamstring
with that though, too, right?
- Exactly.
- All right, where are we at Brad?
- No, we're right here.
- We could do adductions here.
- Oh yeah, I mean, this one is a little difficult
- Yeah, not a favorite of mine.
Just if you want to work that inner thigh
And that muscle going across a little bit like that.
You can do these too.
You know what, stay back down there, Bob,
when I have my patients that do it,
I have them bring this knee up,
and it does put your body in a different position,
but they feel a little more comfortable.
- Little bit better, yeah, exactly.
- Or you can skip it.
- All right, we're gonna skip on over to here now,
speaking of which.
All right, next one you do need an exercise ball
or a physio ball.
And these come in handy for a lot of actually
the lower extremity exercises.
- And actually, if you're just doing this one,
you don't need such a big ball,
you can get it with a smaller one.
- It's just a great way to do squats
because you can keep the knees, the feet
quite out far from you.
And, and that's going to put less stress on these.
If your feet are back like this and you're bending your knee
and my knee is going way past the front of my foot,
vertical line, vertical line, a lot of stress on the knee,
a lot of sheer force.
Now that may not bother you if you have good knees,
but if you have bad knees, you're going to know it.
So you can put the feet way out here and you can just easily
start with some shallow scraps like this.
That's what's nice about it.
Don't bring your knees in like this and don't bring your
knees out like that.
Keep them straight forward over your toes.
- I want to emphasize Bob is, has no shoes on.
I'd really say do this with shoes
because if you're on a floor that's slippery,
with socks, you'll slip right out
and you'll have a little accident.
- Eventually you can work down to further and further
as pain allows.
But again, we do not want pain for these,
but this is a great functional exercise
and strengthens all the muscles that possibly
could give you trouble.
So what are you looking for Brad?
- Well, you know, for some people, you know,
something to hold on to, or even put a moveable chair.
- It does make a big difference.
- Yeah, it's amazing.
It's a stability as well as strength.
A little bit makes a big difference.
- A lot of times what you want to do is even
eccentric strengthening with a (unclear)
so that means you're going to work on the way down,
but then you're going to have help on the way up.
And this is a great one to do for painful knees.
Work on the way down, help on the way up.
- Again, I can't emphasize enough,
if it starts to hurt when you go so far down,
do not go that far; stay in that pain free range.
It might be shallow at first.
- Yeah, very shallow-.
- Or depending if you're having a bad day
and you did something to irritate them,
you might even want to take a break if it's too much,
but work them as tolerated.
- I just saw a study on this, Brad,
I read yesterday about how it was amazing.
Just doing strengthening decreases the pain in the joint
when you strengthen around the joint.
And it didn't take that long either.
- It's just a matter of finding the right exercises.
- Right, So we've given you some here today.
Brad's going to now show you, this is our giveaway,
actually, the suspension straps.
These are, by the way, very well made.
I'm just so impressed with these guys.
The Flige, F-L-I-G-E.
These are high quality straps for a really low price
and the best quality I've seen.
- Yeah, they're not going to break.
I mean, this isn't an exercise,
but they're just very strong.
Okay should we start the exercise?
Okay, so the first one we're going to do is just the squats.
So how far you get out is going to depend
on your comfort level,
but we're just going to start baby squats like this.
- This is like the ball on the wall;
It really gives you support.
- Liz, can you show, again I would do this with shoes on.
You don't have to, but I don't want you to doing
squats like this, where your heels come off.
And I have a lot of patients do that.
It puts too much stress on the knees.
Keep your feet flat, and that's why we're using this
suspension strap so you can control and have good mechanics,
less stress on in the knee.
We're not trying to get way down to here by any means,
you know, the farthest you're going to go is to here.
But if you have painful knees,
you're probably gonna just start with shallow ones
and do 10 of them and just work it slowly.
- It really gives you a support.
- A lot of confidence.
You could put a chair behind you.
Well, why don't you grab that chair, Bob?
Sometimes I have patients use a chair because
they don't really know--
- As a guide to how far down to go.
- And I'll put that in the clinic and I'll say,
now, when you feel that chair don't go any farther.
Obviously you can't anyways, but it lets you know,
and then if you're tired, you can simply sit.
A little safer that way.
And then the lunges? - Show the lunges, yeah.
- So right there from that same position
you could lunge forward,
but we find it works better to take a step backwards
and then lunge down, holding on, take your time.
- Again, these are ones that I have trouble with,
it actually hurts my knees a little bit.
But when I deal with these, no problem at all.
I've actually started doing them again for that reason.
- So you're, you know, chances are,
you're not going to go way down here.
For one thing if your knee hits that floor
and it's a hard floor, it's gonna hurt so take your time
and the goal is just to work at a nice, modest pace
and intensity level depth.
If you feel pretty comfortable, it's getting too easy,
you can do 10 of them and you want to add a little more
knee range of motion and strength,
you could do this and put a little knee kick--
- A little flair in there.
- Yep, a little flair.
Again, 10 of these is good.
- Why don't we cut away, I'm going to show two more, Brad,
but by the way, you must've just did some painting.
- What are you doing Bob?
- You must have did some painting.
- Bob you're touching me.
Yeah there is paint, that's white.
That's white paint, I was doing sidelights.
- We're going to jump over here.
All right, if you don't have any equipment,
you don't have the suspension straps,
you don't have the ball,
you can go ahead and take a doorway, a door,
not a doorway, and a chair.
And you can actually hold onto the handle on both sides
like this, spread your legs apart comfortably,
and you can lower yourself down under control
and then pull yourself up,
lower yourself down under control, pull yourself up.
You can do it with a sink too;
if there's a sink here, you could grab on.
- If you can't get down to touch the chair, that's okay.
You can just go back up.
- Yeah, you can go down to this point,
then it pull back up too.
- Again, this is eccentric strengthening.
sort of strengthening on the way down
and then pulling on the way up.
So Brad's going to show a couple on the stairs here now.
- Actually if you do have a stair rail or something,
this actually works pretty good, Bob.
- [Bob] Yeah, that would work too.
- A nice option as long as you know,
- [Bob] The spindles are holding.
- Yep and you're not too large of a person.
Or this is nice, and I do this with a lot of people
and I'll have them hold their rail
and then they're just pushing straight up
and then come down slowly.
That's that eccentric aspect Bob was talking about
and you know, see if you can do 10.
Now, if you're doing these and you find you're leaning
way forward, like this to push up,
that is not working the legs the way we'd like to.
So use your arms and keep good posture.
We want to maintain good posture in everything we do.
- [Bob] And you can also go straight forward like that.
- And it works really nice if there's a rail on both sides,
this is really the deluxe.
I don't know if you can see what I'm doing through the rail,
but up posture, we're not going like this.
That's called cheating or compensation.
Up and down.
You'll feel those quads working after 10 of those.
And if you can't get to 10, that's fine.
Do whatever's comfortable.
Use the rails as needed to assist.
- Brad, I want to point out one more thing
over here on the suspension straps.
If you decide you're going to get some of these
suspension straps and you want to use them
with our wall anchors, you go to their website FLIG,
and you can find the set here.
There's also a section, I guess,
where you can add in some carabiners that fit
on our wall anchors cause the one that they have do not.
- [Brad] They're a little small.
- Yeah, they're a little small,
and so you'll put it in your cart
and they'll give them to you for free
if you already have the wall anchors.
And again, they have a discount right now
for the Flige suspension straps, so it's a good time to buy.
- Sure. Yeah, absolutely.
- All right, remember Brad and I can fix just about anything
- Except for - A broken heart,
- But we continue to work on our endeavor.
- We persevere. - The saga continues.