Top Knee Exercises for Healthy Joints

A healthy joint can ensure fluid movement, whether you’re walking, running, or jumping in sports, or everyday life. No matter how old you are, you must take good care of your knees to help prevent the development conditions such as joint tissue damage and arthritis.

Improving the muscles around your knees help keep your legs stable and flexible to avoid tears and painful injuries. Unfortunately, some may already be experiencing pain and discomfort that prevents the ability to perform exercises to maintain the health of your knee joint. If this is the case, you should speak to your doctor about which exercises you should try. You should work closely with a physical therapist to lower your rate of swelling or inflammation and preserve your knee joint as you age.

Walking

Walking is one of the most fundamental and easiest types of exercise that won’t impact your knee joint and can help build up leg muscle. Walking can also warm up your muscles for more complex exercises to ensure your joint tissue and bones move as you do. Also, walking before and after a workout will prevent additional stress on your joints, which can lead to chronic pain.

Although this small exercise might not seem like the one to save your joint health, you’d be happily surprised to see how it can improve your knee flexibility and stability.

Hamstring Curls

To perform a hamstring curl, lie on your stomach, straighten your legs, bend your knees, and bring your heels as close to your hamstrings as you can. Now, hold this position for a few seconds, and then relax. Repeat this move as many times as you can before switching legs. Hamstring curls help develop stronger legs and more fluid joint movement. However, if you’re up for a challenge, you can add more repetitions or weights to increase your leg strength.

Wall Squats

Wall squats are a more challenging form of exercise to improve your knee joint mobility. This is because you’ll be using your body weight—rather than a weight you’d typically hold in your hand—as a form of resistance. To perform a wall squat, hold your back flat against the wall and bend your knees while sliding down the wall until your thighs are parallel to the ground or are in the seated position. Once you’re in the wall squat position, stay as still as you can, reset, and repeat. This can be tough for those without properly developed thigh or calf muscles but can significantly improve your knee joints’ health.

Leg Raises

Another great exercise for poor leg or knee joint strength is leg raises. These can be performed practically anywhere, if you can clear a portion of the floor to lie down. To perform a leg raise, lie flat on your back, bend one knee, and keep the other leg straight on the floor. Then, extend the leg that’s raised and slowly lower it to the floor. Rotate and do as many repetitions as you can. Although leg raises might be hard to do at first, you’ll get there!

Hopefully, these workouts can benefit your knee joints following the recommendations of an orthopedic surgeon in Atlanta. To learn more about your current knee joint health and how you can improve it, contact Piedmont Orthopedics | OrthoAtlanta at https://www.orthoatlanta.com/.