Exercises to strengthen knees

Exercises to strengthen knees

You don’t realize how important knee strength is until their weakness negatively affects your day-to-day life. Your knees will also negatively affect your workout program or your sports training if you don’t strengthen them properly.

Different exercise programs for knee strength 

Your needs will be different, depending on your current workout routine. If you don’t exercise at all, the exercises that will be the best to strengthen your knees will be different to the exercises that will help if you do regular strength or weight training. They will also be different if you play sports regularly.

For this reason, this article will be split into three categories:

• Knee strength training for people who don't exercise
• Knee strength training for athletes (runners, tennis players, soccer players etc.)
• Knee strength training for weight lifters

Choose the one that best suits your needs so that you can strengthen your knees as quickly as possible.

If you don’t exercise at all, doing knee-strengthening exercises that will help someone who already puts a lot of pressure on their knees because of sports like running won’t do you much benefit.

Knee strengthening exercises for people who don’t exercise

Knee strengthening exercises for people who don't exercise

Your knees could be weak for two reasons:

• Under-use (they don’t do enough work to keep themselves strong)
• Over-use (they are in one position for too long like with jobs that require standing)

In both cases, doing exercises that strengthen the muscles around the knees will help to strengthen your knees.

If you stand for long periods of time, try walking around when you can. Moving the knees will allow extra blood flow to nourish the joints and support faster recovery.

Correct your standing posture

Long-time standers or walkers will benefit from changing their posture. Try not to lock your knees when you stand. Bend your knee ever-so-slightly when you stand so that your weight is placed on your leg muscles instead of the knee joints.

Take note of the way that your feet are pointing when you stand or walk. Try to train them to point forward instead of too much outward or inward. Either way in one of those directions will place a disproportionate amount of pressure on one part of the knee compared to the other side.

See this video on using the right standing posture to avoid joint pain (notice how the knees are not locked in and the feet are straight on the floor):

Exercise routine to strengthen the knees

Follow this exercise routine twice a week

Warm up

Jumping jacks for 5 minutes

Exercises

Squats: 3 sets of 15
Lunges: 3 sets of 15 for each leg
Standing Calf Rises: 3 sets of 20

Stretches 

Toe touches (2 x 20 seconds)
Quad stretches (2 x 20 seconds) - Do this by standing on one leg and using your arms to pull your other foot towards your glutes.
Calf stretches (2 x 20 seconds)

Exercise routine to strengthen knees (for people who don't exercise)

If you follow this routine twice a week, the muscles that support your knees should start to strengthen from the second week onward. These exercises will also help to strengthen the knee joint itself.

Knee strengthening exercises for athletes and sports players 

Knee strengthening exercises for athletes and sports players

Knee strengthening exercises for people who do sports like running, soccer, rugby, tennis, cycling or swimming

If you feel a pain in your knees, it is most likely due to overuse. Overuse is one of the most common causes of joint pain and injury. Runners, for example, are susceptible to knee injuries because they use their knee joints in the same way over and over again. This can lead to a disproportionate amount of pressure placed on the joint.

Rest (time off), heat and cold therapies will help to speed up the recovery of knee pain or injury. The following exercise regime will help to strengthen the knees against further injury in the future.

Knee-strengthening exercises for athletes (home addition)

Most people won’t have access to a gym. For this reason, I’ve designed this program with these people in mind. These exercises will stimulate the knee joint in a different way to how it has been used during your sport (helping to counteract the overuse problem). It will also strengthen the supporting tendons and ligaments so that they are better able to support the knee.

Follow this exercise routine every Monday, Wednesday and Friday

• Do Jumping jacks for 5 minutes (bend the knee every time you land: Like a mini squat)
• Squats until exhaustion (until you can’t squat anymore)
• Take a 5 minute rest
• Lunge on alternating legs until exhaustion
• Do standing calf raises on a step until exhaustion
• Do toe touch stretches for 3 sets of 30 seconds (wide feet apart) (this is a stretch)
• Do toe touches for 3 sets of 30 seconds (feet close together) (static stretch)
• Pull your foot towards your glutes to stretch out your quad muscle (3 sets of 20 seconds per leg)
• Do calf stretches for 3 sets of 30 seconds per leg

Knee strengthening exercises for athletes

Knee strengthening exercises for weight lifters

Knee strength exercises for weight lifters

If you are a weight lifter, chances are that you do a lot squats and dead lifts already. Squats and dead lifts are two of the best exercises to improve knee strength. Doing squats and dead lifts too often, or at an intensity that your knees can’t handle, can damage your knees.

If squats or dead lifts are too heavy for your knees

In this case, you should decrease the weight that you place on them for a while. Opt for lower weight, higher rep training to increase strength while allowing the knee joint to recover. You can still improve strength and increase muscle size at higher reps.

In fact, changing your rep range could be exactly what you need to shock your body into further growth.

Bones take longer to respond to training than joints, and joints take longer to respond to training than muscles.

If you are currently placing more weight on your knees than what your body can handle, decrease the weight of your squats and dead lift by exactly half. Increase your rep range and train till exhaustion.

Bones take longer to respond to training than joints, and joints take longer to respond to training than muscles. Your muscles could be ready for the next challenge, but your knee joints are still playing catch up.

Higher reps help joints to recover

Higher rep ranges reduce the strain that the joints take and give them time to strengthen themselves, while still challenging the muscle to grow. Lower rep ranges, on the other hand, place a greater strain on the joints. In the long-run this stimulates them to get stronger, but they can only grow at a certain rate. The growth rate of joints is much slower than muscle growth.

Do higher reps for a month or two. Once your knees are strengthened, you can go back to your previous rep range. It is better to change your rep range than it is to stop training all together in the future because of a knee injury. I know of many people who had to go through knee surgery because they pushed this joint too far. Just because your muscles are ready for more weight does mean that your joints are.

If you are doing squats and dead lifts too often

Reduce the frequency of your knee-intensive exercises. Knee-intensive exercises include:

Knee intensive exercises

• Squats (and their different variations)
• Dead lifts (and their different variations)
• Jumps (and their different variations)
• Lunges (and their different variations)

All of these exercises improve knee strength over time, but doing them (or a mixture of them) too often can result in damage to your knees. Your joints need more time to recover than your muscles do. 

Reduce these knee-intensive exercises to once a week for at least two months, or an 8 week cycle. If you still want to train your legs more often every week, you can do isolated leg movements on your second and third leg day. This will stimulate leg muscle growth without further damaging your knees.

Leg exercises that aren’t too knee intensive

• Knee extensions
• Leg extensions
• Hamstring curls
• Calf rises (seated and standing)
• Glute kickbacks
• Thigh machines

How do you know if the weight is too heavy or if you are doing these exercises too often?

It can be challenging to know whether you should reduce the weight or reduce the frequency of your knee-intensive workouts. Thankfully, I’ve got you covered.

Check your current workout program

• If you do the knee-intensive movements more than once a week, it is likely that you are placing strain on your knees more often than what they can handle.
• Take note of your rep range. Low reps are great at building strength, but can hurt the joints if done for too long without giving the joints time to recover. When was the last time that you trained at a higher rep range? 

Pain duration as an indication of knee vulnerability

If you have been working out for long enough, you should know that difference between a joint pain and a muscular pain. Knee pain in particular is a type of joint pain.

If the pain lasts for a few days, but disappears for a while before you do leg training again, it is most likely intensity related (i.e. too much strain in a single workout session). When the pain persists for longer and does not go away until your next leg workout, you are most likely training more than what your knee joints can handle.

Exercises to strengthen knees for weight lifters

Here is what you can do to strengthen your knees if you already strain them consistently through exercises like squats, lunges and dead lifts:

Warm up the knees before workout them out

A good warm-up routine can increase the amount of work that you knees can take before becoming over-strained, reduce the risk of damage and improve their power output.

The reason why warm-ups are so effective is because of blood flow. You elevate nutrient delivery and by-product elimination when more blood flows to your joints via a good warm-up exercise. You knees will basically start the processes needed for strength and recovery before you do the exercises that stimulate them to do so.

Warm-up exercises for the knees

Light cardio

Do some light cardio before you start with your leg exercises. Do this by using the elliptical, walking at a fast pace or running for a few minutes - or anything that gets the blood pumping throughout your body. Light cardio will improve nutrient, oxygen and energy delivery. This will give your knees the resources that they need to work at their best.

Warm up sets

Do half of your intended weights for the same amount of reps. Warm ups sets can be done for one to two sets before the main workout. You don’t need to do this for every exercise that you do. I’d recommend doing warm up sets before all your major, compound exercises.

Warm up sets will reduce the amount of strain that the actual workout places on the joints because of increased nutrient delivery and better by-product elimination.

Putting a lot of strain on your joints when they are still cold will dramatically increase the strain that they take, the amount of time that they need to recover and it will reduce the amount of work that they can do. Give your knees some time to get into their workload, and they will reward you with better stability.

Stretch out the knee to eliminate tightness

Joint tightness is one of the leading causes of pain and injury. When joints are tight, they are susceptible to injury outside of a limited range of motion.

Additionally, if you work your joints under high pressure at a range of motion that is greater than what they usually reach, they are vulnerable to excess strain. In other words, when the only time that you knee bends a certain way is when it is working at maximum output; it is most likely going to strain.

Do the following exercises regularly to improve knee mobility 

• Toe touches (wide stance and narrow stance)
• Quad stretches
• Calf stretches

This will increase the range of motion that you knees can work under before taking a significant amount of strain.

Proper form

Another one of the leading causes of knee injury is improper form when it comes to squats and deadlifts. Your muscles should be carrying the weight – not your joints.

Squats

Squats done with improper form can cause more damage than good. These tips will help you out:

• Your heels should be carrying your weight through to the ground – not your toes. If your heel lifts during the squat, work on calf mobility by doing calf stretches.
• Stand with feet slightly more than shoulder width apart. Wider or narrower stances will place a greater burden on your knees. The wrong stance will also cause an imbalance in output between your hamstrings and your quads.
• You should point your feet out slightly. This is the most natural pose for your knees. If you point your feet too wide or direct them narrower, the knees carry the lift instead of the legs.
• Do not let your knees go further than your feet or your toes. If this happens, you are leaning too far forward. Your joints are then working extra hard to balance out the weight. This will strain your ankles as well as your knees.

Watch this video to see what a proper squat looks like or click the link above to read more tips on squatting with the proper form.

Speed up joint recovery

If you need to strengthen your joints, there is a large change that they are already injured. To help you get back onto the top of your game, here are some tips to speed up joint recovery ASAP.

Take fish oil to prevent joint injury

Fish oil supplementation helps to lubricate the joints. Furthermore, omega 3 is naturally anti-inflammatory. This will help to reduce joint inflammation and speed up the recovery process. 1000 mg of fish oil daily can help to reduce joint damage if taken regularly. 

I like to ramp up my fish oil consumption a week or two before I know that I am going to do exercise that will challenge my joints.

Sweat it out

Steams rooms can speed up the body's natural recovery process. Heat causes blood vessels to dilate (expand or open up). This will increase the amount of blood that flows through them. The parts of your body that need to recover will benefit from this because they can receive more nutrients and expel of more toxins, damaged cells or by-products when the blood vessels are dilated.

Have an active rest day

A good rest day can speed up recovery. Use this time to do some light exercises that will improve blood flow and stimulate recovery, work on your mobility and maximize nutrient exchanges in your system. Rest days that involve light physical activity and help to speed up recovery are known as active rest days.

In order to prevent injuries and pain before they happen, I like to incorporate an entire rest week into my training schedule every 2 months. The above link walks you through what I do during my rest week. I always return stronger than before after my rest week, because I give my body exactly what it needs to get stronger.

I hope that you found the answers and exercises plans that you were looking for in this post. If you did (or didn't), please let me know in the comments below. Here's to stronger knees and less pain, Stay Strong!

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