Strengthen Your Knees with These Exercises

Most knee injuries happen because the leg muscles aren’t strong enough to bear the weight of the person. Fortunately, there are simple ways you can improve the muscle strength on your legs, and you don’t even need to go to a gym. Just do the following exercises at home.

Straight leg raise

This exercise is designed to strengthen your quadriceps, which are the muscles located on the front and side of your legs and attached to your knees. Your knees need these muscles to be strong because they keep your knees straight and help them absorb shock whenever you’re running or jumping.

If your quadriceps are weak and you try to run, your knees could get dislocated, which can be very painful leading you to a trip to a knee surgeon in Orem. So, try avoiding this injury by following the straight leg raise.

• First, lie down on your back with your legs extended downward.
• Then, lift the right leg first without bending your knee.
• Lift your leg until its six inches off the ground and hold that position for five seconds.
• Bring your right leg down.
• Do the same steps to your left leg, and alternate each leg for 10 to 20 reps.

You can add more resistance to your straight leg raise when you feel that your leg muscles are stronger. Add resistance by attaching weights to your ankles.

Glute bridge

With this exercise, you’ll target your glutes, core muscles, hamstrings, and quadriceps. These muscles are also necessary to keeping your knees stable whenever you’re moving around. The core muscles are doubly important because they control most of our movements.

From standing upright to lifting your legs to climb the stairs, your core muscles are integral to those movements. If your core muscles are weak, you won’t be able to keep your whole body stable, and you might even encounter an accident.

With the glute bridge workout, here’s what you need to do.

• Lie down with your back on the floor and your knees bent upward so that the soles of your feet are planted on the floor.
• Your palms should also be flat on the floor.
• Using your glutes and core muscles, slowly lift your butt to the ceiling. Don’t arch your back when you’re doing this.
• When your butt is elevated, hold that position for a second and then bring it down.
• Right before your butt touches the floor, hold that position for a second and bring it up again.
• Do this exercise for 10 to 15 reps.

Heel raise

Both of the exercises above are designed to strengthen the leg and core muscles above your knees. The heel raise is designed to strengthen the leg muscles below your knees, which is also important because if you only strengthen the upper area, you’ll lose stability in the lower area.

Here’s what you’re going to do with the heel raise.

• Stand up straight.If you’re having some problems with balancing, use a chair or position yourself in front of a wall.
• Slowly lift yourself up by using your calf muscles, like you’re tiptoeing.
• Hold that position for two seconds, and then lower back down.
• Do this exercise for 10 to 20 reps.

If you have strong leg muscles, core muscles, and glutes you’ll minimize the risk of suffering a knee injury. Practice these simple exercises to protect your knees.