How To Use A Stationary Bike To Help Heal Knee Arthritis

Can using a stationary bike actually help you heal arthritis and get your knee pain under control? In this video, I’m going to show you exactly how to use a stationary bicycle just like this one, to help you get long term relief from your knee arthritis problem. So will bike riding actually benefit knee arthritis? The short answer is yes.

But the long answer is, it is part of a long term process of plan to help your knee arthritis. You can’t just rely on using a bicycle to heal your knee arthritis, you’ve got to do some strengthening, you’ve got to make sure you gain any range of motion that you’ve lost. And the right time to do a bike to ride a bike matters as well.

But I’m making this video because as a healthcare professional myself, I’ve seen so many patients that go out and purchase a bicycle like this or they even go out on an outdoor bike, any kind of bicycle, because they got a recommendation from their health care provider from their from their doctor, whoever is taking care of their knee arthritis problem to begin using a bicycle to help their knee arthritis.

And I’ve run into so many patients that actually get worse from riding a bike, it’s because of how they’re using it. And then I have other patients who do get a benefit out of the bike, but then they cap out their benefit. And there’s a reason for that as well.

But the bottom line is if you own a bicycle like this, or your you own an outdoor bike, or you have access to a gym, where you can use a bicycle like this, it will benefit you if you use it the right way. So that you can take pressure off your knee joints, and allow the cartilage in there to heal a lot of arthritis to calm down and make sure you have your full range of motion in your knee.

Now in order to use the bike, you do have to be able to bend your knee about 120 degrees is ideal 115 or 10 degrees, you might be able to get away with it. But as you can see, when I bend my knee here at the top of the cycle at the stroke, my knees has got to bend this much. If you can only bend your knee about this much, bicycling is not going to work for you at least the way that you would think you can actually go just forward and back on the pedals within the motion that you have available in your knee.

But it’s not recommended to do that for a long time, like most people would get on a bike for 15-20 minutes or longer to get a workout, you’re not going to able to do that if you don’t have full motion. So if you lack enough motion to get all the way around comfortably on the bike without forcing it through a little bit of a stretch, then you should not be on a bicycle yet you need to go work on your mobility.

There are other things to do. And in fact, I’ve got a playlist of knee arthritis videos down in the description below, go check those out to look, look for some other starting points that better suit you. But if you do have enough range of motion to straighten out your knee and bend it enough to get over the top part of the cycle here, then you can start to use a bike.

So let’s talk about how to adjust the bike properly so that you get the best benefit out of it. First off, you’re going to stand next to your bike. And if you are using an outdoor bike, then you want to just lean it up somewhere where it can stand. And you need the seat to be at about where your hip bone is.

So where the bony parts on the front of your hips are, you just need to raise the seat to the top so that the top level of the seat is at the same level. I’m going to bring it up a couple notches on my hip bones up here. Go up another notch. That’s just slightly below. That looks just right. Now this is a guideline, it’s not a hard and fast rule.

So if you get on the bike, then the next step is to start the pedal. And what you should feel when you pedal is when you go on the downstroke when your leg is, is at the bottom most part of the pedal cycle, you should have a slight bend, you shouldn’t feel like you’re having a lockout your knee in order to get all the way to the bottom.

You also shouldn’t feel like you’re teeter tottering. You’re your body, your upper body in order to peddle this. You feel like you’re still on the top. So I feel like this is okay, I’m actually going to lower it a notch. I think it might be better. Just slightly more comfortable. So I don’t think he went down. There we go. Yeah, that just feels more comfortable.

To me, it doesn’t have to be absolutely perfect. It just needs to feel comfortable so that you can hang out here for a while and get the benefit of the exercise. Some bikes offer other ways to adjust it like this one, you can actually adjust the handlebars forward and backwards, there’s a lever that you would turn here and it slides out that way.

I would move it into the closest position as long as it’s not hitting your knees so that you’re more upright because the farther away then you’re going to have to lean over with your upper body and it’s just not going to be as comfortable. Some bikes also have an adjustment on the seat back here like this one, where you turn this and the seat can slide forward and back.

Now same thing find a comfortable position it to be in, I’m just going to move it all the way forward Swim, swim as upright as can be, because that’s going to strain my back less, it’s going to feel more comfortable my back. And once you’ve got the bike set up properly, and you’ve spun around on it for 30 seconds, maybe a minute, and you feel like this will work for you.

Now you’re ready to start thinking about the technique that you’re going to be using on the bike, you would think that it’s too straightforward, you may have ridden a bike since you were a kid, years and years ago, and you think why not ride a bike, but there’s a way to actually make your knee pain worse from arthritis, or to improve it.

And it’s a subtle difference, the main thing that you need to worry about is using your glute muscles on the downstroke of pedaling. And there’s two factors that you need to consider whenever you’re using your glutes. One is actively thinking about tightening that glute muscle whenever you go to push down, and you should be alternating sides.

So when I push down on this side, now my left leg is going to start coming up. So now my right leg and my right glute needed to activate when I push my right leg down, and then you’re alternating, so it should feel like right glute, left glutes tightening, right glutes tightening, every time you push down, your butt muscles should be squeezing a bit doesn’t have to be 100%, it just has to be more than your quads.

Because think of it this way, if you weren’t using your glute muscles to push your leg down, what were you using, you’re probably using your quad muscles in the front of your thigh, not even thinking about it. And for using those quad muscles quite a bit, then you’re going to create lots of pressure on the front of the knee and jam the shin bone up into the thigh bone, which promotes or makes worse knee arthritis.

So you have to do this in a way that makes you use your glutes rather than your quad muscles. The other factor that is going to help you fire your glutes better is to open your knees up not excessively to where it looks awkward and weird or feels weird. But if you’re thinking of pedaling with your knees just pointing straight, you need to just angle them out slightly. That may help you fire your glutes more.

But hands down consciously thinking about using the glutes is the number one thing you should worry about. Then moving your knee position usually outwards is the next thing that may assist you in using your glutes. You can’t just move your knees outwards and expect to make your glutes work without having to think about it.

It’s usually the conscious thought that makes the glutes work best. But having your knees slightly out helps out. Now you need to master this idea of firing your glutes whenever you’re pedaling, and you’d be good at it. If you cannot use your glutes while you’re on the bike, then this is not going to be good for you. And this is where people mess up.

This is where people run into problems when it comes to cycling for their knee arthritis is they get to doing it and it may feel good on the joints to just move it around. There’s not as much resistance because you’re not pounding your bodyweight like if you were jogging or even walking, going up and down stairs. But it ends up strengthening your quads more in the long run and it can actually worsen your knee arthritis.

So if you cannot get your glutes to work, well get off the bike, put the bike exercise on hold, and you need to go do glute exercises before you can come back to the bike so that you can very consciously use your glute muscles while pedaling.

Now a question I often get is does a type of bike matter when it comes to using a bicycle for knee arthritis, it doesn’t really matter as long as you’re using your glutes, that’s the number one thing but you can use an upright bike like this stationary bike, it can be a fancy one or a not so fancy one.

An outdoor bike would be okay to just stay on flat ground on an ideally on paved road or a sidewalk or you know, it’s not going to be super bumpy and there’s risk of you falling or not being able to concentrate and using your glutes well, because you’re trying to make sure you’re safe. And then the other type of bike is a stationary bike.

But that’s one that’s recumbent one where you’re reclined in a chair with a backrest. And instead of the pedals under your body like this, they’re out in front of you. That can work too. You just have to make sure that your glutes are working while you’re pedaling. When you’re in the at the farthest position of the of the pedal stroke, your glute needs to be squeezed in order to for it to be effective.

If you go to straighten out your leg on the at the end of the pedal stroke and you feel like you’re using your quads more than your glutes, then you should not be using that recumbent bike try a stationary bike and upright stationary bike like this one instead. Part of the problem with recumbent bikes is because of the chair, it blocks you from extending your hip as much.

So if you look when I push down right here, my hip is more extended, which makes my glute want to fire better. But I do have patients that use the recumbent bike effectively and they do make their glutes work pretty well. So you have to try it out for yourself and see what kind of body control you have. See if you can get your glutes to work effectively.

Another question I get When it comes to riding the bike is, should I wear a brace, especially if you’ve been wearing a brace and it’s been helping you out with your knee arthritis pain, then you might think, well, let’s keep the brace on the bike. But it kind of bothers me when I’m cycling as well, every time I’d bend my knee, the thing gets sweaty, the Velcro kind of wanted to come off to my advice would be don’t worry about the knee brace, because here’s the facts, you’re on it.

Especially if you’re on a stationary bike, like this one and upright bike or recumbent bike, you’re balanced, there’s pretty little risk for you falling, I mean, I can lean over quite a bit in this bike is very sturdy, on an outdoor bike, it might be a different story, you maybe you do want to have a knee brace on. But on a stationary bike, I think you can take the knee brace off, it’s just going to impede you, it’s going to not let you exercise as comfortably.

So it’s, it’s really only necessary if you also have looseness in your knee. Like if you have a ligament problem like an ACL that’s torn or an MCL that’s torn, then that would tell you put the brace on, potentially while you’re cycling, but even then you’re going to be pretty confined on to in this motion on the bike.

So you don’t need to worry about stability from the brace. Ultimately, it’s a comfort thing, if you feel like you want to have the brace on while you’re on the bike, because it makes you feel better you have less pain, or you just feel like you get a better workout. That’s totally fine.

There isn’t a strong right or wrong, I would just think you’re getting your way and it’s okay to take it off because you’re safe. Now the question is, is there a benefit to pedaling backwards? I really don’t think so. I have not been able to use my glutes as good as when I pedal forwards when I go backwards.

So I really think that pedaling backwards is just not the best thing because it promotes quads strengthening. Now, the end answer that would give anybody is if you can get your glutes to work effectively, whether you’re pedaling forward or backwards, it doesn’t matter. All that I care about in order to help your knee arthritis problem is that you’re using your glutes very well.

And if pedaling backwards, causes you to not use your glutes, well, then let it go. Don’t do it. Even if a healthcare provider tells you to a fitness trainer tells you to if they’re not aware of the glutes idea and how it takes pressure off the knee joint, then their advice isn’t sound and you shouldn’t be doing it because the stronger you make your quads by using them more, it’s only going to make your knee arthritis worse in the long run.

The other question I get is, How long should I ride the bike for? Well, the best thing to do is if you’re starting out for the first time, go for 10 to 15 minutes, see how you feel don’t add any resistance to the bike at all. Just pedal nice and easy. Get comfortable with the adjustments on the bike, and making sure that you’re firing your glutes properly.

If that works well for you and your range of motion to is okay to tolerate being on the bike. If all that works well for you, then the next time you have an opportunity to ride the bike, usually a day or two later, then see if you can go 20 minutes, add five to 10 minutes at a time not more than that. And you really don’t need to be doing more than about 20 to 30 minutes a day to get the benefit of it.

Now, if you want to go longer than that, like 45 minutes an hour beyond, because you want to burn the calories and how about your overall health, that’s totally fine. You just need to make sure that you’re neat can take it so adding a little bit of time five to 10 minutes at a time. And only changing one factor like if you’re going to add resistance, don’t add more time.

Keep the same time that you’ve been doing before. So that you can nail down what your body can do. Because if you add resistance and add time and try to go faster, and then your knee hurts, it’s hard to tell which of those factors was the main one in making your knee worse was it the resistance was it that you went more intensely?

Was it that you were there longer, because maybe you can last longer if you take the resistance down to where you were before. And you don’t worry about increasing your speed. If you just focus on one factor at a time and increase the time, that’s going to be your best bet. And the number one thing to increase is time because reps the more repetitions that you put your knee through that are tolerable for your knee.

It’s not making your knee hurt anymore. That’s what heals cartilage over time. That’s what’s going to help your knee arthritis problem. Now the last point that I want to stress here is fixing knee arthritis with just a bike is not the solution. This is just a piece of the entire process. Fixing the arthritis usually takes several months, it can even take beyond a year. And that’s just the way that it is for anybody.

I mean, usually arthritis has been developing over the course of years. And in order to fix it, it doesn’t take the same amount of time. But it may take more time than healing from like a sprain or a strain. And many people they purchase a bike using for a few months and expect their knee arthritis to go away all the way but what they didn’t do was also strengthen the right muscles.

And even though you’re using your glutes here, and that’s going to strengthen your glutes to a degree if you think of exercise on the spectrum And on one end of the spectrum, you have endurance, cardio type exercise. That’s what cycling falls into. On the other end of the spectrum, you’ve got strengthening, like weightlifting, doing things that force you to use your muscles in a maximal effort.

That’s more like power strengthening exercises. Exercise falls anywhere on that spectrum. With some on one end of the spectrum of more cardio and some more on the other end of the spectrum we’re strengthening, you need to have a balance of everything in order to effectively help a knee arthritis problem for the long term.

And if you’re only doing cardio based exercise, like cycling, you’re not going to work on the strength aspect and you’re not optimizing the effect on your knee arthritis so you can optimize your knee health and prevent your knee arthritis from getting worse.

Definitely preventing things like a knee replacement surgery, you can thrive even if you’ve had knee arthritis, even if you’ve been told this bone on bone. If you have good emotion in your knee, you can cycle then you need to go strengthen as well. And all that combined is going to get you to where you’re active and healthy again, and avoiding surgery.

Now if you’re looking for a comprehensive program on treating knee arthritis, I’ve got a program called the knee arthritis recovery program, and it’s listed in the description below. You can learn more about it there. I hope this video was helpful for you. Please check out our playlists on knee arthritis videos for more help. And please subscribe to our channel so that you don’t miss out on any of the helpful videos we post every week. I’ll see you in the next video. Buh bye.