Hey everybody, it's Doctor Jo. Today I'm gonna show you some range of motion exercises for
your knee after a total knee replacement. Let's get started.
With a total knee replacement, this is the one big
surgery I would say it's a no pain, no gain situation. You really have to kind of push
yourself through that pain to get your motion back. And those early stages, the first week
after your surgery are the most important because then the scar tissue starts building
up in your knee and if you don't get that motion in there, you're gonna have a lot harder
time as time passes. So I'm just gonna show you some very simple ones, but again, make
sure you're pushing yourself just a little bit through these exercises. The first one
is just gonna be a simple heel slide sitting in a chair. So you're gonna start probably
in about this position because this might be a comfortable position for you right now,
right after your surgery. Try and keep your foot flat on the ground, and just start sliding
it back towards you. Now you can put a towel underneath if you want a little more slide,
most the time if you just have your socks on that works as well. You can do a continuous
slide back and forth and try and push your heel back more each time. What's gonna happen
is your heel's gonna start coming up like this. That's your body trying to compensate
for that motion. So really try and keep that heel down. Once you do about 10, then take
a little break. But what the next step of that is, is slide it back and then try and
pump your foot a couple times. And see how that actually makes me get a little more bend
in my knee while I do that? And then try and slide it back a little more. And then pump
that foot. Trying to keep that heel down and then slide one more time if you can, and you
probably won't be able to bring those toes up quite as high, but really try and pump
it. And then come back. So that's kind of a two step motion there. Now the next one
is to straighten the leg out. This is probably the one people have the hardest time with.
Sometimes it's one or the other, but most of the time it's the straightening out. So
what you're gonna do is prop your foot up on another chair, or a table, an ottoman something,
so you're probably gonna be about here right now. So just having gravity push on it is
gonna help some, but again, you have to be a little bit aggressive with this. So you
can take your hand and push down. Not on your knee, you don't want it to be on the joint,
but just above the knee kind of in that thigh area. And push down for about 5-10 seconds
and then come back up. If you're having a hard time and it's really bent into that flexed
position and you don't have that extension straightening out. You can put a bag of, a
plastic bag, and then put some soup cans or vegetable cans in it, and again put it just
at the top and then let it hang. I have a video for that for the knee extension exercises
if you want to check it out. And again, you can use your hand, just to push it down a
little bit, but try and hold it about 5-10 seconds if you can and then relax. Alright,
the next ones are gonna be down on the ground. So now you're gonna get down on the ground.
If you can't get up off the ground very well, you can do these in your bed. You can do all
these exercises lying down in your bed. So lying down, the knee that hasn't had the surgery,
you're gonna prop it up. And then you're gonna have your other leg out and you're just gonna
do a heel slide lying down now. So coming up again trying to keep your foot flat if
you can and then coming back down. So just slide up, and then come back down. So you
can do about 10 of those really try and loosen it up a little bit. You might not be able
to get quite that high to start off with. That's ok, just go as high as you can. After
you get it loosened up, then you can use a strap, if you don't have a strap you can use
a belt or a dog leash, or a towel and put it about at your shin level, so it doesn't
slide up, and then you're actually gonna pull up a little bit more. So this one, you're
trying to get that extra bend in there, that extra stretch. So coming up and back. And
then if you want to try and hold it for about 5-10 seconds, if you can tolerate it. Then
do that and come back down. So again, getting that pull with the strap, or the belt, or
the dog leash. And then the last exercise is gonna be a quad set. And what that is,
is your knee might not quite be straight yet, and so you're gonna lay down and then try
to push your knee down into the ground. And that's squeezing this quad muscle, that's
why it's called a quad set. If you need a little target, like a towel, you can roll
up a towel and put it underneath your knee. But you really want to push down and get it
as straight as you can. So just squeeze down, hold that for about 5-10 seconds. Now if you
take your toes and pull them up, as you squeeze down, that'll help kind of activate all those
muscles and give you that extra stretch with the calf as well as the quad. So squeeze,
hold about 5-10 seconds, and then do 10 of those. So there you have it. If you have any
questions, leave them in the comments section. If you'd like to check out some other videos,
go to AskDoctorJo.com and Remember, be safe, you're gonna have to push that knee a little
bit with a total knee replacement, have fun. And I hope you feel better soon.