Running is great! But do you know how easy it is to get your knee injured?
From walking and running to jumping and squatting, your knees are essential for a variety of movements. In order to bulletproof your knee, it’s crucial to take time to warm up before any physical activity, whether it’s running, cycling, jumping or squatting.
Some tips to avoid injuries and Bulletproof your knees:
Start slow!
When you begin a new workout, your body needs time to get used to it. Within weeks or months, it became used to it depending on the sport. Although it’s always a good idea to check your body’s response to make sure you don’t injure your knees or anything else.
Warm up your body!
Never start “cold”— always warm up to decrease muscle stiffness around the joints. The most efficient warmup gives your body a chance to loosen up, gradually increases your blood flow, and prepares you for the intended sport.
For doing a knee warm-up exercise routine you can try doing 5 mins! Essential workout routine using the O’Coach app while making your joints happy!
Be balanced!
Being balanced is not only about how long you’re able to stand on one foot. To bulletproof your knees, your body must have the capacity to keep you balanced under multiple circumstances. This means when you’re running down a mountain trail on an uneven surface!
This means that you need to challenge your balance in variety of ways, single leg, jumping and landing on one foot, or hopping. All of these different surfaces and activities will help improve your ability to adapt and maintain your balance.
Perform Knee strengthening exercises!
Even though it seems illogical, but where do we tend to pay the most attention when we have knee problems? The knees, right? What else? That’s a major part of the problem!
The fact is that knee problems are usually the result of problems in other parts of the body, not the knees themselves.
To bulletproof your knees integrate these exercises into your workout routine. It is an effective way to help prevent injury and keep the other major parts strong, as it strengthens the muscles around the knee and helps you with running.
For strengthening your quadriceps
Your quadriceps, the muscles on the front of your thigh, are key to knee stability. Strong quads help reduce stress on your knees and improve the stability of your kneecaps.
To strengthen your quads, try doing the following:
- Walking lunge.
- Step-up.
- Squats.
For strengthening your calf muscles:
Calf muscles help to strengthen the back of your lower legs. It benefits your hamstrings and provides your knee with greater support and stability.
To strengthen your calf muscles, try doing the following:
- Seated calf raise.
- Jumping calf press.
- Wall sit calf raise.
For strengthening your hamstrings
Your hamstrings, the muscles on the back of your thigh, help stabilize your knee joint. Strong hamstrings can help prevent knee injuries like patellar tendonitis and ACL tears.
To strengthen your hamstrings, try doing the following:
- Leg curls.
- Glute bridges.
- Sumo squat.
For strengthening your core
Strong abdominal and back muscles allow pressure to be taken off joints, helping to reduce and prevent additional injury. In addition, it helps reduce stress on your knees by keeping them properly aligned.
To improve your core strength, try doing the following:
- Sit-ups.
- Crunches.
- Push up.
You can perform these exercises anytime, anywhere and with anyone. But if in any case, you have a knee injury visit a physical therapist/ doctor who can help to set up the right exercise regime. Because, during the rehabilitation process, you must follow the proper workout regimen based on your injury. And to create your custom rehab workout set, you can try the O’Coach post-injury rehabilitation app. With the app, you can create your own custom injury rehab exercises and schedule them to be performed every few hrs for better recovery.
Why only O’Coach?
- Custom rehab workouts – O’Coach lets you create your custom injury rehab workout depending on your injury type and your overall health.
- Set reminders for your daily workout – O’Coach lets you schedule your workouts to perform at specific times according to your preference. And sends you notifications for your rehab workout at your scheduled time.
- Maintain a proper record of your workouts – You can add custom lengths for each of your exercise sessions. And give different timing to each of the exercises.
