Sensitive knees: what do you do?

[SueT]

Carb 8985, do you avoid the Tonique moves that are higher impact? I think the mistake I made when doing Tonique was to do it 6 days a week, and thinking I could do all the high-impact moves.

I'm wondering if adding in a segment or two of Tonique Premier might help me with my knee rehab.

Thanks,
Sue

[Carb8985]

Originally Posted by SueT

Carb 8985, do you avoid the Tonique moves that are higher impact? I think the mistake I made when doing Tonique was to do it 6 days a week, and thinking I could do all the high-impact moves.

I'm wondering if adding in a segment or two of Tonique Premier might help me with my knee rehab.

Thanks,
Sue

Sue, I don't do Tonique 6 days per week. That would probably be too much for my legs (and my knees!). I do it 3-4 days per week. Sometimes I'll do Tonique Mat or Energy Mat on the alternate days. Often, I alternate with Ballet Body.

As to whether I do the higher impact moves, yes and no. I don't do the squat jumps or jumping jacks - to me, the most impactful moves. That said, I do the handstands and burpees and other plank-type cardio. I try to just land softly and brace my core to absorb the impact. I worked up to it though. I definitely modified until I had the strength in my legs and core to do this.

I also make a point to foam roll my IT band before many of my Tonique workouts to loosen my IT band and to ensure that the right portion of my quad (the inner "teardrop" area) is the muscle that is activating during the workout. That was the one piece of advice from my PT that was actually helpful when I was dealing with my wonky knees, which is that, the proper muscles don't fire if a corresponding muscle is too tight or overcompensated.

Hope this helps you!

[TinierTina]

Originally Posted by horsemom2

I have had stiff knees since my 30's for over 30 years.
If I get a twinge, Arnica gel usually stops it. I'm sure the massage action helps as well.

I do alot of bouncing, both on a bungee and while sitting on a stability ball.
I also use the stability ball for wide plies which seem to help when my knees and hips feel twingy.

Barb S

Yup, low impact, quad strength and looser hip flexors are not the whole story. I, too, need the liniments.

Step aerobics done on a BOSU barely impacts my knees. Of course, I had been brought up (my "step"-infancy, by and large) on the Jane Fonda Personal Size step, so it's not a question of missing the fancy, long professional ones ...

[DonnaG]

I have a baker's cyst on my left knee that flares up occasionally. Most recently I did alot of kneeling and crawling (cleaning/painting baseboards) which really aggravated my knee, but did confirm that it's not so much the exercises I do that sets it off as direct abuse. I had been doing an increased mix of high and low impact, along with moderate weight leg exercises (X-Train mostly) with no problems. I've backed off on high impact and reduced the weighted exercises till the inflammation reduces...and no more crawling on my knees.

Thanks for the link to corematrix; very interesting info there.