Tips and Exercises for Knee Injuries

It’s almost impossible to not re-injure yourself when you do an intense workout with a pre-existing knee condition. Nevertheless, it shouldn’t stop you from losing weight. Your willingness to continue burning calories with low impact exercises and determination to reach your goal will be the key to your weight-loss success.

There are different types of low-impact exercises that you can use to shed pounds and strengthen your injured knee at same the time. Here is a list of exercises for those with knee injuries.

Elliptical Training

Instead of running on a treadmill, you can pedal your way to weight loss using the elliptical machine. Elliptical training is a low-impact cardiovascular workout that can help you build leg strength as well as improve your heart health.

Additionally, this training can burn calories and fat without aggravating your injury. Compared to the treadmill, elliptical training allows you to go through the motions of running without bringing too much pressure into your back, hips and knees.

Walking

Before doing a more intense workout, dieters warm up by walking for at least 10-15 minutes daily. If you notice, after spending few minutes walking, you start to sweat a little. By walking you can burn calories and fat, although not as much as running, it is still a considerable amount to ward off weight gain.

Moreover, if you have a knee injury, walking is more useful than running since it is less stressful on the knee, and it helps improve leg strength. Note that you need to start walking at a gradual pace for 15-20 minutes daily until your knee is ready to handle more minutes of walking.

Swimming

Swimming is one of the best workouts for people with a knee injury. This fun activity helps induce weight loss and improves cardiovascular health. Furthermore, water helps support the body weight allowing you to do an aerobic and resistance workout without stressing your knee joints. In fact, swimming, according to the Centers for Disease Control can also relieve arthritis and osteoporosis too.

Cycling

Cycling is another ideal workout that can help you achieve your goal without compromising your knee injury. You can perform cycling using a stationary bike or a real bicycle 30 minutes daily. If you prefer outdoor cycling make sure that you avoid bumpy roads to prevent falls and accidents that can worsen your condition.

Calf Raises

Calf raises or “toe raises” works out the lower-leg muscles. This exercise is highly recommended for people with bad knees. When doing calf raises, you need to do it on a flat surface, and you need to learn the right alignment in order to do it correctly. You can start 25 reps daily and add more reps when you are ready to take your workout to the next level.

Exercises to avoid when suffering from knee injury

Some of the work outs that you need to avoid include squats, lunges, step-up exercises, high-impact kick boxing, deep knee wall squats and fast paced walking or jogging. Do not pressure yourself to perform extreme fitness workouts, especially if you are suffering from knee injury as this will only aggravate your symptoms.