hey everybody it's doctor Jo, and today I'm going to show you my top 7 knee
strengthening exercises. so let's get started.
If you happen to have some knee pain, especially when you're doing strengthening
exercises, you can use a knee sleeve. the folks at Titan compression sent me
some of their knee sleeves, and if you're interested in purchasing them, you can
click up here. when you use any kind of knee sleeve, you want to make sure it
fits right because if it's too tight you're gonna cut off circulation. if it's
too big, it's gonna kind of slide around. so with the compression sleeves, it's not
a brace. it doesn't stabilize your knee. what I like about the knee sleeves is
it's kind of like a hug. it just kind of holds everything together a little bit.
it gives you some compression to keep the circulation going and it does give
you that little bit of feel of security, but if you have something like an actual
ligament injury, this is not going to stabilize your knee. but if you have
arthritis or something like that, this is gonna really help just kind of keep
everything together with that nice hug. so the first exercise is going to be
what we call a short arc quad. so basically you're making a short arc. I
like using a foam roll, but if you don't have a foam roll, you don't have to use a
foam roll. you can take a big beach towel and roll it up, you can use a ball like a
basketball or soccer ball, you just want it to be something where you have a
short little angle there on your knee. you want to keep your knee on the roll
the whole time, so you're not picking up your leg, you're just straightening your
leg at that knee. so you can either sit up like I'm gonna do, or you can lie down.
you want to be comfortable, so if you're kind of uncomfortable sitting up like
this, make sure you lie down. so all you're gonna do, keeping the knee on the
roll, is just straightening it up as much as you can. see how I kind of pull my
toes up at the end? that just kind of helps activate all those muscles.
I'm strengthening that quad muscle right there. that's the one that extends or
straightens our knee. so do a nice slow controlled movement even when you come
back down, and get that little squeeze at the end there. so if you have knee pain
or an injury and you're trying to strengthen it, you might not be able to
get that knee fully straighten, but that's okay. just try and go as far
as you can. big squeeze at the end. you should feel
that muscle working, and nice and slow going back down. I would just start off
with ten. if you get to ten and that's easy, you can kind of slowly work up. if you're
getting to twenty - twenty-five and it's easy and it's not very hard, you can add
an ankle weight around your foot just to start strengthening it a little bit more.
so the next one is going to be bridge. bridging it's one of my favorites
because it not only works the hamstrings, it works the glutes, and all of this has
to do with strengthening your knees as well. so go ahead and lie all the way
dow,n get nice and comfortable, and prop your knees up. so what you want to do is
as you come up, kind of come one segment at a time with your back. so you're not
just popping up and then popping back down, you're really controlling this
movement. so you're just bringing your booty up off of the floor. so coming up
like this, you want to just get pretty straight. you don't want to try and arch
it up, they're just nice and straight. a little pause at the top and then slowly
come back down. so not fast. making sure that those
muscles are doing the movements not momentum doing the movement by just
dropping you back down. so same kind of thing, I would just start off with maybe
ten of these. if that becomes easy and if you get to 20-25 then you can try doing
it just with one leg of a bridge. but if this if you feel like you're kind of
dropping that hip down, then you're not ready for that single leg bridge yet. so
make sure that you're doing the correct technique the whole time. so then the
third one is still doing a bridge, but this time you're going to use a
resistive band with it. and so what this does is it helps activate other muscles
while you're doing the movement. so you want to take the band and put it around
just above your knees at your thighs. so start off with a really light band. if
it's different brands, usually the colors are a different amount of resistances, so
I would start off with the lightest one whichever one you have. so same kind of
thing you're going to go into that bridge,
getting your knees bent, but as you can see that bands trying to pull my knees
inwards. I want to try to keep them as straight as possible. so I'm not pulling
out necessarily, I'm just holding them in that bridging position without letting
my knees come in. so holding it there and then you're going to go back into that
bridge position. you might be able to see my legs might knee just went in a little
bit, and that just means that those muscles are working. so now I'm
activating these outer muscles as well as the glutes and hamstrings with the
bridge. so again with this I would just start off with 10. it might feel kind of
easy, but you're doing more work with your body than you think you are, so just
slowly progress up from there. and then if that gets pretty easy, you can go to a
higher resistive band. so then we're still gonna do bridges, but now we're
going to just go in the opposite direction. so using a ball of some sort,
it can be a basketball, soccer ball, if you don't have anything like that you
can fold up a pillow and put it in between, you can use a yoga block, you
want it usually to be something kind of soft, but you want it to be enough where
you can squeeze your knees inwards. so now you're activating those inner thigh
muscles. so same kind of concept, you're doing that bridge, you're doing that
controlled motion, but this time I'm squeezing in when I'm lifting. so a lot
of times people kind of forget to squeeze in. so make sure you're squeezing
in first, and then lifting up into the bridge, and then nice and slow coming
back down. so if you feel like you're coming out a little bit, then just reset
everything ,squeeze it in come up, nice and slow back down. so sometimes the
muscles want to cramp underneath those hamstring muscles, so if you feel that,
just come back down. you might not be quite ready for that yet.
so now we're going to go into a seated position. so the fifth exercise is going
to now be a long arc quad. so we did the short arc quad on the floor, now it's
just going to be a longer arc. so that's why it's called the long
arc quad. Just get in the chair get nice and comfortable. if you need to relax in the
backrest you can because you don't want to be hunched over. you want to be nice
and upright. and then all you're gonna do is just straighten out that leg. so again
you're squeezing that quad muscle. you're contracting it. pulling up your toes at
the end helps, but you don't have to, and then just nice and slow coming back down.
so don't just drop that leg back down, but coming down is just as important, if
not more important, than the coming up. so nice and controlled, little squeeze at
the end, nice and controlled coming back down. so even though this might not feel
like a lot, if you're trying to strengthen those muscles because you're
injured or you haven't been doing exercise in a while, this is going to be
a lot, so again make sure you're doing it correctly. if you get to 20-25 and it's
easy, you can put a small ankle weight around your foot just to give you some
more resistance. but don't go too much with the ankle weights because that open
position is going to put a lot of stress on the knee, so maybe three to five
pounds of ankle weight at the most. so the last ones are going to be standing
up. so this one is just a squat. squats are great they kind of work everything
around the legs and the hips, so they're really good to do, but you want to make
sure that you're doing them correctly. with squats, you want to keep your knees
behind your toes. so if you feel like you're going forward like this, then
you're putting a lot of pressure on your knees and then that's gonna be really
painful. so you want to stick your bottom back. you want to kind of even yourself
out, keep your back straight but bend at your hips. you want to have
even weight on your feet. so not back on your heels, not up on your toes. I like
using a chair behind me not necessarily that I'm sitting down, but if you're a
little weak because you're trying to strengthen it, you go down and you can't
get back up, you can just sit down in the chair. so feet about shoulder width apart,
toes pointing forward, not out, not in, nice and forward, and then coming down
sticking that booty back and coming back up. so you're really trying to find the
chair with your booty, but if you don't have the chair that's fine, you don't
have to touch it but make sure those knees stay behind the toes.
so you can just go this way, you don't have to go down that deep. if you're just
starting the strengthening exercise, you can do what we call a mini squats. so
you're just going like this, but still keeping those knees behind the toes.
you're not doing this - my back with my back straight up like this - you're
keeping the back straight, but you're hinging at the hips. so you're going down
and then coming back up. so same thing just start off with ten. if you get to
twenty five and thirty, and it's easy, you can start adding some some weights up here
if you want to, or you can start with like a one leg squat. but the last
exercise is still going to be a squat but this time you're gonna use the band
again to activate those other muscles. so I'm just going to put it again kind of
right above the knees around the thighs, get that about shoulder width maybe
slightly past it for this so you can kind of get that band resistance, and
then do the same thing. you want to make sure those knees aren't collapsing
inwards. you don't want them going in like that, you want to keep them out and
still have that good form with when you squat. so you can go down deeper as long
as you keep that good form, or you can just do a little mini squat with it.
but if you feel like your knees are collapsing in like that, then you're
probably not quite ready for that band. so there you have it, those were my top
seven knees strengthening exercises. if you're interested in purchasing the
Titan compression knee sleeve, make sure and click on the link up here, and
don't forget to subscribe by clicking down here. and remember, be safe (keep
those knees happy), have fun, and I hope you feel better soon.