3 tips to Get Rid of Unbearable Knee Pain
Activate the Muscles Around Your Knee
Your muscles provide support and stability for your knee joint so you want them to be able to do their job. For one reason or another that could be overuse, underuse, poor sleep, an injury, etc. the muscles around your knee may have stopped firing as effectively. This is the cause for many injuries but don't worry, there is something you can do about it. You can get improve activation of your muscles with an exercise called isometrics.
Isometric Guide
Isometrics are a form exercise where you activate your muscle without actually moving. You want to tighten and hold your muscle in a fixed position for a set amount of time
As an example, think about holding your arms up and flexing your biceps. That would be an isometric and the same can be done to almost every other muscle in your body
When holding your isometric you want to be in a position that you can feel your target muscle tense
How much tension?
For rehab purposes you just want a light amount of tension, think about a gentle squeeze of the muscle
Perform 5 repetitions
Hold for 5 seconds on each rep
If your pain is fairly intense and you’re having difficulty doing anything, try to do your isometric exercises 5 times per day.
As pain improves you can include more activity and/or regular exercise into your day and decrease how often you do the isometrics
Full Range of Motion Exercises
The key with this tip is to make the exercises what is called "Weight bearing" which involves standing on the ground and using your bodyweight as resistance. The advantage of exercises like these is that they cause the muscles surrounding your knee to work harder resulting in your actual knee joint to taking less stress!
We have example videos of exercises you can do to help with your knees linked below.
For all of the exercises listed above aim to start with 5 repetitions, only go as low as you can manage, and use balance support from your hands as needed. You can increase repetitions to 10-15 as you get stronger and less painful.
Use a pool
If you've been dealing with pain for awhile and doing full weight bearing exercises are just too much to take right now one of your best options is to get exercise in a pool! The advantage of this is that your weight is reduced but you can still get good use out of your muscles due to the resistance of the water.
All of the above exercises can be performed in the pool (without added weight for the goblet squats, obviously).
As your pain and strength improve you can transition back to land when you’re ready.
