Transcription
Odds are you've spent time scouring all the information out there to answer one question: How can I find arthritic pain relief without surgery? And trust me, you are not alone in searching for options that don't involve more medications, more injections, more procedures, or surgeries. And you do actually have options when it comes to pain relief.
And one of those options is getting strong. Muscle strengthening can be extremely powerful when it comes to providing arthritis pain relief and opening the doors to an active lifestyle. Don't just take my word as a physical therapist for it. It has been extensively studied in the research how truly powerful this can be.
In this video, we're going to go through my top five favorite movements to help strengthen your arthritic knees in the right places to bring you relief. We're going to start with the most basic, and then they're going to increase in difficulty. So make sure you stay till the end so you know what you're going to be working towards. Here we go.
For this first exercise, you're going to start in a seated position. Even if you feel you are beyond the basics, I would highly encourage you just to try these basic movements first to make sure that you are on the right track. For each of these movements, I'd like you to be able to comfortably complete around 20 repetitions before moving on to the next exercise.
Starting in a seated position, what I'd like you to do is scoot to the edge of the chair where both feet are able to be on the floor. We're going to be working the thigh muscles. These are also called the knee extensors, very important for walking and for stair climbing. You're going to kick one leg out and then the other. Now, notice I am straightening my leg, which is working the knee extensors. The straighter you go, the more you're going to be working this muscle.
If you have a hard time doing that because of pain or weakness, what you can do is bring your heel and just tap it out in front of you. Notice you're still straightening your legs, so you're still working this muscle, but your goal is to be able to work up to here, where now you're working those muscles a little harder. But of course, we don't want to flare up pain. Now again, you want to work to about 20 repetitions that you can do comfortably without flaring up pain before moving on to the next one.
Exercise number two is going to be in standing. Now, it's not only important to work the thighs or the knee extensors that we just talked about, but you also want to work the knee flexors, the muscles that help to bend the knee. Those knee flexors are actually in the backs of your legs, and these tend to get neglected. We don't tend to work these as often as the thighs. So this exercise, we're going to directly work on those knee flexors.
What you're going to do, you can use support if you need it. You're going to start on one side. So I'm going to stay on stay on my right side, and I'm going to bend up my left heel. So think about this muscle working to bring your heel up to bend that knee. I like to call these heel lifts, and a lot of times you can really feel in the back of your leg pretty quickly. If you do experience some cramping, it is normal, and that means that muscle really needs to be worked on. What you can do is try not to lift so high and really try to just get some activation here first. The higher you lift your leg, the more that muscle has to work. I would shoot for about 20 repetitions on one side and then 20 repetitions on the other side before moving on to the next movement.
Exercise number three is a chair squat. Now, before you say, "Oh, this hurts, there's no way I can do it," I'm gonna show you a trick, okay? Now, remember, for each movement, you want to master about 20 repetitions. So if you're not there yet for the chair squat, that's okay. That is a goal for you to work towards. This is arguably one of the most important movements to master if you have knee arthritis.
I want to break the movement down just for a moment so it starts to make a little more sense why it's so important. Now, for a chair squat, essentially, you're starting in a seated position and then going into standing. Watch what my knees are doing and think about those two muscle groups that we just talked about: the knee extensors, the ones that straighten the knee, and then the knee flexors, the ones that bend the knee. As I go to stand up, all I'm essentially doing is trying to straighten my knees. As I sit down, I'm trying to do a controlled bending so I don't plop down.
If you have a hard time standing up, you may need more work in those knee extensors, those thigh muscles. If you have a hard time sitting down, you may need some work in those knee flexors, unlikely a combination in the thighs as well. The sitting down in a controlled fashion is the harder part of this movement. As you stand up, you're using those thighs to try to extend or straighten your knees. So a simple chair squat is essentially standing up and then sitting down, and I want to caveat this with sitting down in a controlled fashion.
To get the most out of this movement, you must be able to do the first half, which is standing up, and the second half, sitting down, without plopping. One way that you can help to change this movement if you are experiencing pain with this, or even if you're not and you want to add a little bit more core work to this movement, all you need is a pillow. Now, this pillow, it just needs to be big enough that you can hold on to it. What you're going to do is just place it on your knees as you stand up or just hold it near your chest. You're mainly going to be using this as you sit down.
As I sit down, I'm going to press the pillow out in front of me, and then I'm going to stand up and press the pillow out in front of me. What this is doing is allowing you, or basically requiring you, to push your hips back. This is one of the biggest mistakes I see as a physical therapist. So many people when they sit down, they bend the knees first. Whatever joint bends first takes most of the load. So if you add a pillow to this, you're essentially forcing your hips to bend first. Your hips are much more prepared to take more of the load than your knees are.
Without the pillow, you might find yourself doing almost like a little scrunch to sit down. Instead, I want you to focus on that pillow, pushing that pillow out as you sit down, and standing up, pushing that pillow out to use more of those hips. Hip strengthening is incredibly important for knee arthritis relief as well. So we can't just look at the muscles of the legs near the knee, we have to actually look up at the hips too. The great thing about this movement in particular is you are working so many different muscles at once.
I do have a video on 10 squat modifications that even with the pillow, if you start to experience some pain, you can check out that video as well, or if you're just curious on how to add variety to a chair squat, that is a great video to go to.
Exercise number four can be very helpful if you're working towards getting better at stairs, but make sure that you have mastered the three previous first. This exercise becomes a little bit more challenging because we're going to start working on single leg strengthening. So this may highlight if you have one side that's stronger than the other.
For this exercise, you'll need a step stool or you will need the bottom step of a flight of stairs. I really like another tip to use a step stool when I'm doing any sort of stair work or practicing on getting stronger for stairs. A lot of times stairs can be, I believe they're around eight inches on average, but sometimes stairs can be really hard, especially as you're working towards strengthening. Getting a mini step stool like this really gives you more options and allows you to build up that strength without flaring up your pain.
This is a mini aerobic step stool. I'll put a link down below. It's just from Amazon, but I also like it because you can adjust it. So you can take the bottom riser off and make it even smaller. I think it's around four inches, and then six inches when it's when the risers are in. So just a caveat. What you're going to do is I'm going to put one foot on top. So let's say I'm going to start with my left foot, then I'm going to hop my right foot back so that there is a distance, maybe between one to two feet, between your front foot and back foot. Make sure your step stool is on a surface that it's not going to slide out from underneath you.
This exercise is going to work again multiple muscles at once, and we'll see why here in a second. What you're going to do is bend both knees. That back heel can come up, it does not have to stay on the ground. Bend both knees slightly, and then push away. Knee flexion, bending those flexors are working the backs of your legs. As I push back, my extensors are working those thighs right in the fronts of those legs.
Lunges can be really difficult if you have knee arthritis and are a common source of pain for a lot of people. Doing it in this front foot elevated lunge allows me to keep in control of this front knee and start to work on the movement. If you watch my knee in regards to my toe, my knee stays fairly in line with my ankle here, stay slightly behind the toes. The problem with a lot of typical lunges is you tend to bring your knee towards your toe. Now, this is not an inherently dangerous position, and this isn't certainly a position that you should avoid for the rest of your life, but if you are currently experiencing knee pain, as your knee gets closer to your toe, it's likely not going to feel comfortable, especially at first. But you need to get there in order to especially go downstairs. So this is a way to help you start to build up that tolerance.
I'm just going to bend both knees and then push away. Bend both knees and push away. The beauty of this is your hips are also working as well. Remember, we don't want to neglect those. Again, we're aiming for about 20 repetitions on each side. Now, please work up to this and do not try all 20 at once. Try five each side, see how you feel. Bump it up to 10 each side and see how you feel. This is all about gradual working towards a goal. Then you will switch sides and you will do the same thing. This will also challenge balance as well.
Once you're able to master 20 on each side, you can move on to exercise number five. Now, exercise number five is actually a balance exercise, which you may not think that balance and strength go hand in hand, but balance can help improve strength, and I'll explain why in a second. But first, I want to get you set up for this movement.
Now, you may notice I'm in the corner of a wall. This is another hack if you're practicing balance movements at home is to do it in the corner of a wall so that way, if you do lose your balance, you have support on three sides of you: both sides and then behind. That way, it helps to improve the safety because that is of utmost importance. You're going to need a weighted object, so you can use a dumbbell or you can use a soup can or a water bottle and fill it with water. I'd find something that's about five pounds or less, especially if this is the first time you're trying this movement.
What you're going to do is put one foot in front of the other. Ideally, you want one foot directly in front of the other. That's the hardest variation of this movement, but if you need to, you can widen your feet to give you a wider base of support. That will make the balance a little bit easier. Once you find a position where you're able to stand here for about 10 seconds pretty comfortably without feeling super wobbly, what I would like you to do now is pass the dumbbell back and forth or pass the weighted object back and forth.
What this is doing is making your body stabilize as you shift your weight side to side. This again is a movement that commonly gets neglected. As you're primarily moving forward, you don't challenge the loss of balance laterally a lot, but it is so incredibly important. Now, when you're doing this, I want you to think or maybe even feel what your leg muscles are doing, what your hip muscles are doing. Do your muscles start to get tired when you do this? The answer should be, or maybe yes, depending on how proficient you are at balance.
When you are balancing, all of your muscles are working at once to help to support your joints, to help to support your knees, and to help to support your hips. One way to ensure those muscles are active is to not lock your knees out. Keep them slightly bent so they are active. Also, think about keeping your weight towards your heels. That's going to make the backs of your legs and even your glutes or your butt muscles active. As I'm doing this, my muscles are working to keep my legs strong and stable so they don't give out or I don't lose my balance. Then I'm going to switch the position of my feet and repeat. I like to count this 20 passes on one side and then 20 passes on the other side. Now, remember, the position to work towards is one foot directly in front of the other.
Now, it's your turn to actually see the power that getting stronger has over knee arthritis pain relief. Listen to your body. Gradually work into these movements, especially if they are newer movements. Don't try to do too much too quickly, or you will pay for it. Give yourself time, be patient, and start building up those muscles to support your knees. If you know somebody else who is dealing with knee pain and looking for relief, share this video with them. It is time to open the doors to adventure, even with arthritis.