Knee joint problems are one of the most common causes of disability in the world. This is because our knees bear maximum brunt compared to all the joints, some way or the other almost all the exercise, day to day work such as walking, running or playing that we do involve our knee joints.
Repeated actions can cause wear and tear resulting into knee pain and damage to its cartilage and the muscles supporting your knees. Besides, obesity puts added pressure on the knee joint. Knee pain can also result due to fall, accidents or even an athletic injury.
Knee Strengthening Physical Therapy
If in case the damage to the knee joint is severe, a person may require knee joint surgery. Even after the surgery, the muscles attached to the knee needs to be strengthened so that the knee does not bear more pressure.
Physical therapy helps to strengthen the muscles attached to the knee, mainly the hamstring and quadriceps. Aside from surgery, knee strengthening exercise is useful in conservative management of osteoarthritis of knee joint. Hence knee strengthening physical therapy is useful after knee surgery, and in conservative management of knee related pain.
Below are few knee strengthening physical exercises that can effectively give relief to the knee pain and its mobility.
Thigh muscles exercise: this is the most simple exercise that you can do while sitting on a chair.
- Step 1: Sit on a chair with your soles touching the ground. Your lower legs are bent at 90 degrees from the knee.
- Step 2: Now press your left foot, so that your thigh becomes tensed. Count for 10 seconds and relax.
- Step 3: Repeat the same on right leg.
- Step4: Follow this exercise for ten minutes.
Exercises To Strengthen Knee Muscles
This knee strengthening exercise can be easily done at home while you are lying down at night. It hardly takes few minutes:
- Step1: Lie down straight on the bed.
- Step2: Now fold the unaffected leg at the knee joint. Let the sole of that feet touch flat on the bed.
- Step 3: Keep the affected leg straight, and raise it at 40 degrees.
- Step 4: Count ten numbers and then bring the leg down.
- Step 5: Repeat the exercise for five to ten times.
Lifting the leg while lying on your stomach:
- Step 1: Lie on the stomach, with your hands on your sides and your legs straight.
- Step2: Bend both your legs from the knee joint and bring it down to the ground level one after another.
This knee strengthening exercise is especially useful after knee surgery.
Exercises For Strengthening Hamstring
- Step1: Lie on your stomach.
- Step2: Keep your feet straight.
- Step3: Now keep one leg above the other, in such as way so that the right foot is placed on the heels of the left foot.
- Step4: Try to lift left foot and resist it with your right foot.
- Step 5: Hamstring muscles of the thigh get contracted due to the opposite actions.
- Step 6: Repeat it five in the beginning, and once you are comfortable it can be done for 10 to fifteen times.