Exercises For Knee Pain

I started going to the gym a lot more Dec 2022 to lower my A1c, and in April, I got some persistent knee pain, especially when doing squats and lunges. I got a lot of advice, and, as of Aug 2023, a couple things have helped:

  • learning how to squat correctly
  • doing stretches to improve my overall lower body flexibility, reducing stress on the knee when exercising.

I'm also going to add some random health notes here...

Stretches from Daniel

Mini band side lateral walk,2 to 15 steps, knees follow tes, feet straight, small squat, glut medial

Glute bridge with Band, like a regular bridge with Band, glute maximus, with abduction (spread apart knees, close)

Side line leg raise with band

Clamshell

  • Foot ball thing,
    • Straight leg, flex toes,
    • Go across foot
    • Roll down

Foam roll before and after

Dynamic stretch before, static stretch after

Practice 2 or 3 stretches/foam rolls each day

Stretches From Karen, the web, and Christian

Some of these are from 12 Stretches to Improve Flexibility.

I'm trying to hold them from 20-30s

  • Toe touches
  • Downward dog with foot shuffle
  • Calf stretch
  • Standing quad stretch
  • Butterfly stretch
  • Sideways lunge
  • Frog pose
  • table-top diagonal stretch into the hip Christian showed me

Christian's Pre-workout Warmup

  • 30 second jump rope
  • 10 Shoulder rotations w/ rope
  • 10 Overhead squats w/ rope
  • 10 Hip hinges
  • 3 Roll Outs to Plank (a push up is optional)
  • 3 Lunges while pushing your knee away and looking the opposite direction
  • 10 Lateral lunges

Medbridge Stretches

Half Kneeling Hip Flexor Stretch with Chair

Quadricep Stretch with Chair

Hook Active Hamstring Stretch

Single Leg Balance with Alternating Floor REaches

Single Leg Balance with Clock Reach

Behavioural ways to eat less

From https://youtu.be/Kdar5_AWotI

about 1h in

  • Don't eat processed food
  • Don't drink while eating (makes you chew more slowly)
  • Concentrate on food - no phone or TV