knee strengthening and cardio advice

[sherry7899]

I am sorry for the weird thread title.

I posted last week about my knees aching. I think I have been doing too much cardio-four or five low impact dance workouts a week which are an hour each. They are sometimes a little over an hour. I do not do them for more than three days in a row. I do yoga most days of the week. I am passing on weights for now because I am worried about a chronic neck/shoulder injury acting up.

Does anyone know of any knee exercises for stretching/strengthening I can do. I would prefer to find something free online and not buy any dvds/downloads.

Also, I am guessing I should probably shorten the cardio and maybe only do two days in a row when I get back to it? It took so long to build up to the long cardio which I really love, so it is disheartening to have to scale back.

I only do low impact. I have new cross trainer with the Zumba socks over them so they don't drag. I don't do pivots. I exercise on a Berber carpet with padding under it and a cardio mat on top of the carpeting.

Thank you,
Sherry

[Sollamyn]

I like AskDoctorJo on Youtube for physical therapy suggestions. She has several videos demonstrating knee strengthening exercises (and stretching).

Also, if you want more of a workout, Jessica Smith has a 16-minute knee strengthening workout that I think is pretty good. She uses a playground ball, a chair, and a light weight, I think.

Donna

[Demeris]

T-Tapp stance and T-Tapp lunges do wonders at rehabbing my wonky knee.

I don't know if there's anything online to demonstrate the stance or the lunges, but if you search Trisch Richardson--she's on Facebook and Youtube--I bet she'd be able to give a great explanation.

[sherry7899]

Thank you so much! I will check those clips.

[Tanja]

Mary has the FPR Knee series. I have it and I am very happy with it.

There are a total of four phases to strengthen the knees. Each workout is 20 minutes long and you do it five times a week for three weeks before moving on.

[Tugger31]

Good old fashioned floor work hitting the legs from all angles....outer thigh, inner thigh, quads and hamstrings really helped my knees. In addition to this hip stretching and strengthening of the glutes with glute bridges. Alot of people have sore knees from tight hips.

I like Dr Jo's hip stretches on youtube.

For floor work, I just put together my own routine that I changed up with different exercises when I got bored. I tried to do 2 sets of 30 or some days 1 set of 50, definitely worked up to high rep. I never went too much higher than 2 sets of 30 and when that got a bit too easy I added one pound ankle weights. When I want to do dvds I do Ballet Beautiful. Linda Wooldridge also has tons of free floor work stuff on youtube if you search under Mat or Ankle weights. You can obviously do them without the ankle weights.

I think the biggest thing for me was incorporating more walking and adding in the hip stretches and glute bridges. When I was doing the floor work alone I saw some improvements but much more dramatic improvements with the walking, hip stretches and glute bridges.

[Demeris]

Originally Posted by Tugger31

I think the biggest thing for me was incorporating more walking and adding in the hip stretches and glute bridges. When I was doing the floor work alone I saw some improvements but much more dramatic improvements with the walking, hip stretches and glute bridges.

I think you might be onto something with the glute bridges, Tugger. On Thursday, I did Debbie Sieber's Start it Up from Slim in Six, which, as everyone knows, has lots of squats, lunges, and dips. I kept perfect T-Tapp stance form throughout the workout, but I still felt a few scary twinges in my knees and was worried that maybe the workout had exacerbated my poor, wonky knee.

BUT (pun intended) she also has lots of bridge work toward the end of the workout.

AND I have had NO residual trouble with my knee, either knee!

[txhsmom]

Jessica Valant Pilates has some good knee pain videos on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5b0gS7wI1k&t=3s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovzlYNxL6TM&t=3s

These videos contained most of the exercises that my physical therapist prescribed, and they really did help.

Carol

[tangerine]

I've been rehabbing my knee after the same problem - too much cardio that taxed the knees even thought it was low-impact.

I used these exercises to strengthen the muscles around the knees:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5b0gS7wI1k - Jessica Valent
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5b0gS7wI1k - Doctor Jo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBV3I6flrJ8 - Brad and Bob (I find the presenters somewhat annoying but the exercises work)

I also made sure to do VMO work for my knee cap tracking well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2QEfZCnE3g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ialuYCEdje4 - Doctor Jo

And strenghten glute medius:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyqOc5ua8qg - seated clams
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr6wL693Gxg - clams with a band

Glute activation before I did any workouts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOPwZGM66BE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjUqDs50wpg

lots of different work for the muscles that work around the knee. I had a lot of pain initially, I am doing better now but still doing mostly non-HIIT type stuff - that brings it right back. I try to spend a few minutes 'switching on' and activating my hip/thigh muscles before starting any standing workout now.

Hope that helps, knee pain sucks!

[red1013]

Gaiam has a Strong Knees with Chantal Donnelly DVD that has helped me.