8 Exercises To Banish Knee Pain Forever

I found this thread from fitness expert Alexander Cortes, and found it be excellent, so I am reprinting here. You can find the original thread on it here.

1. Backwards Walking With Resistance 

Credit goes to Ben Patrick for popularizing and developing this one. The lowest level of Backwards walking is doing it without weight. Optimally, you do against resistance, weighted sleds work best.  Here’s a quick tutorial how to do it. 

This can be done every day, its a concentric only exercise and very easy to recover from. Do anywhere from 2-4 sets daily, each ranging from 1-2 minutes.

2. Lunge position Isometrics

Lets say that your knee pain is quite severe and doing full range of motion reps is too difficult. Could you do an Isometric rep though? The Isometric lunge protocol I got from Jake Turra is proven to help knee pain immensely.  Here’s how to do it, it’s very simple.

Jakes suggested protocol is starting with bodyweight, and doing sets up to 3 minutes in length. Once you can do 2-3 minute isometric lunges, ADD WEIGHT. As much weight as you can handle Do 4 sets of 30 seconds, this can be every other day.

3. Leg Extension Isometrics

If the lunges are way too hard, and you REALLY need to regress and do something simple. Enter the single leg isometric extension 4 sets x 30 seconds Can be done every day. Here’s how to do it.

4. SUPPLEMENT with Hydrolyzed Collagen

Do this right after doing any of the protocols in this thread.  Our favorite brand uses 3 types of collagen and uses biotin and hyaluronic acid to help absorption. You can get it 50% off right here.

5. PAIN TOMORROW MATTERS MORE THAN PAIN IN TRAINING

Avoiding “pain” and “waiting” for your knee to heal is the WRONG strategy. If you want to fully restore and strengthen your knees, you need to work through the pain and apply some heavy loading. This video explains why.

6. HEAVY LOADING

One of the most self limiting beliefs of having “bad knees” is that you cannot do hard exercises Its the opposite. You need to be loading your knees as heavy as you can tolerate and perform its the only way to get the tissues stronger.  Here are some exercises that will help:

• Heavy split squats
• Bulgarian splits
• single leg press
• Leg extensions

You want maximal tension going through the knee joint.

7. HINDU SQUATS (known as Baithaks)

These have been done for centuries in Indian by Pelewan wrestlers They work the entire quadricep, and can be done for very high reps Your heels are SUPPOSED to come off the ground, your weight, should be on the lateral edge of your foot.

Hindu squats I suggest trying out in sets of 10-20 to start. Use a broomstick if the balance is a challenge initially. As you get stronger, try doing one long set of 100 reps. Once that becomes doable, add a weight vest or challenge yourself with super high reps workouts.

8. Pushing a Sled FORWARD

Sled pushing develops foot strength, knee integrity, all the muscles of the lower body, and it is LOW IMPACT compared to running or sprinting. You can also use it correct faulty gait mechanics at the foot level.

NOTE: If your knees are ‘bone on bone’ try this instead.