The Top 3 Knee Arthritis Stretches
Are you suffering with knee arthritis? And are you looking for some stretches to get some relief from it?
I’m going to show you three knee arthritis stretches that I show all our new clients starting out with us. Here’s what you can expect with these stretches. It shouldn’t hurt to do them, it should actually feel good. And after you’re done doing the stretches, you should be able to get up, walk around, move around, and it should feel a little easier to get around.
Make sure that when you do the stretches, they are gentle, and not aggressive. If we use a 0 to 10 scale, if 0 means you feel nothing, and 10 means it’s the biggest stretch you’ve ever had, and you’re about to tear something at most, I want you to stretch at about a two or three. It should be pretty light. Doing this repeatedly throughout the day, or even every hour while you are awake is most effective. The No Pain, No Gain does not apply here. Stretching your knee as hard as you possibly can, is only going to hurt you.
#1 Heel Slides
Let’s get into the stretches. The first one, we call it the heel slides. You have to have your shoes off and be barefoot. You might do this on the bed or the floor. Let’s say it’s the right knee that is causing you problems, what you’re going to do is bend up your knee as far as it will comfortably go. And then using your muscles in the back of your leg, hold it there so that you are actively working these muscles for about 10 seconds and then relax. I want you repeat these 10 times. You shouldn’t feel a very big stretch in the knee at all, it feels more like your muscles are working in a mild stretch.
Now, if you’re not feeling much of a stretch in the knee, then give it a little bit of pressure with your hands. But make sure that you are not exceeding that 2-3 out of 10 stretch intensity. What’s more important on this stretch is, that you are using your muscles. Because inside the joint, where the knee arthritis is, you are actually moving and shifting the surfaces of the joint using your own muscles. So that’s why this knee joint stretch is so effective for people that have knee arthritis.
#2 Straightening Out Your Knee
After you are done with bending your knee, then you are going to work on straightening out your knee. What you do for that is lie your leg flat, and if you have problems with straightening out your knee all the way because it’s so stiff from the knee arthritis, that’s okay, just be comfortable. What you are going to do next is, use your thigh muscles to tense up the quads, and actively push your knee down into the bed, or the floor as best as you can. Holding it there, you can give it a little extra pressure 10 seconds and then relax a bit, this can help you get comfortable. As far as time rest, it’s up to you, you can take just a couple of seconds if you want to. If you need a minute, that’s fine.
But keep in mind, if you need a minute or longer, you are likely doing this too hard and it’s a little too aggressive. In that case, back off on your intensity if you are really going hard in the stretch. Hold it for 10 seconds, fire up your thigh muscles and you want to go as hard as you comfortably can without hurting your knee, and without doing that stretch too aggressively. Your thigh muscles should be getting a little tired at this point, that’s okay. More importantly, you are shifting the knee joint in a different direction as compared to the other exercise.
#3 Kneecap Shakes
Now the third exercise that I sent people with knee arthritis home with his kneecap shakes. The way this looks is you keep your leg relaxes as you do this, then you are going to grab your kneecap in the palm of your hand, gently and make sure not to press down on it. You are more so just cupping it. Once you feel like you got it under your hand, then what you are going to do is just shake it side to side, real nice and easy. And up and down. Real nice and easy. The kneecap has the ability to shift around quite a bit when the knee is straight. Yours may not move very much, that’s okay. The little micro motions are actually beneficial to getting that kneecap to move.
Shift it side to side about three or four times, and then going up and down like towards your foot and towards hip. About Three or four times as well. You want to do this for about a minute, you are just loosening up the kneecap. Arthritis can largely affect the back of the kneecap where it connects to the end of the thigh bone. By doing this kneecap shake can help quite a bit. Don’t go fast, and don’t be aggressive. You’re not trying to shove your kneecap all the way over in either direction. These small little wiggles, or shakes, should be controlled so that it i’s gentle on your knee.
Once you have done that for a couple of minutes at most, then you’re done. You can get up, move around, you should feel like you are a little more limber, your knee should feel better, it should not hurt. You should be doing these exercises on a regular basis. Right now, I would say do it every hour to two hours, and until your knee feels better.
Now, solving knee arthritis is a process, and what I’ve shown you right now is just the first step. How to go about the next step largely depends on many factors that are individual to each case. I can tell you from experience that resolving knee arthritis is a process and it can take a while at times. What I’ve shown you right now is just the first step to get the knee arthritis looser over time. With certain progressions that depend on your specific situation, your strength, how severe it is, how long it’s been there, there are many factors to look at. Over time, these exercises need to be progressed to more normal activities, so that you can be in a position where you are not having to rely on pain medications, you are not visiting a doctor for injections, and you are avoiding a surgery that might be coming down the line for you, later in life if you don’t manage this right now.
But the good news is that 9 out of 10 cases that we see here in the clinic, they do not need surgery, they have the ability to progress just fine, and get back to being active, healthy and mobile. We have people that have had arthritis problems in the past, and now are running, lifting weights, kneeling down on the floor, getting up and down from the floor, they are active with cleaning their house, going up and down stairs with no problems after getting treatment.
If you are looking for more help with the knee problem, make sure to download our free eBook called The Seven Ways To End Knee Pain. You can get that for free it will be instantly sent to your email inbox so that you can get extra tips on how to begin to resolve your knee problem. I wish you have the best day today. Bye
