Use Exercises To Manage Pain From Arthritis In Your Knees

Your knees are a likely spot where you can experience arthritis pain but exercising can be helpful in reducing your discomfort. Use the suggestions below to reduce your knee pain and increase your ability to maintain an active lifestyle.

Exercising to reduce your discomfort from knee pain should focus on increasing muscle strength surround knees. Strength-building exercises such as using a leg press are useful and you should gradually increase the number of reps you can do with the leg press.

You can help reduce the discomfort of arthritis in your knees by building strength using the wall slide where you stand against the wall and slide down slowly. Your knees should always be behind your toes.

You can increase the resistance in order to increase your strength-building for your knees by holding light weights while you perform the wall slides.

Two muscle groups that can reduce the strain on your knees that you should exercise are your quadriceps and hamstrings. The quadriceps are in the front of your thighs while the hamstrings are in back. A common quadriceps exercise is to lie down on your back and lift your leg straight up and hold it for 10 or 12 seconds and repeat.

A common hamstring exercise requires you to lie on your back with hands flat beside you and knees bent with feet flat on the floor. Push off the floor until your body is straight and hold the position for about 10 seconds, return to the floor and repeat.

You should not avoid your cardio exercise if you have arthritis in your knees but you should choose cardio workouts that put less weight on your knees than other choices such as cycling.

If you have bad knees, you should choose cardio exercises that are not high impact and high intensity. This means that you may have to substitute an exercise for running because running can frequently make arthritis in your knees worse.

Walking is a beneficial exercise even when you have arthritis pain and can actually help achieve your cardio exercise goals without worsening knee pain.

Squats are usually discouraged for those with arthritic knees because when you squat down your knees are carrying the bulk of your weight. Instead of squats, you can lean against a wall in a semi-sitting position so that your knees are bent and simply hold that position. You can increase the challenge of performing this exercise by lifting one leg and then the other while you're in the sitting position against the wall. You should not try to sit so low against the walls that your knees are very bent.

Knee pain is frequently worsened by being overweight since the weight that's being supported by your knees is more than it could be. By dieting, you can reduce the weight you're carrying and reduce knee pain for arthritis.

Arthritis in your knees can limit your ability to have an active lifestyle. Use the suggestions above for incorporating exercises into your workout regimen that will reduce the discomfort you experience from arthritis in your knees.