Dealing With Medical Emergencies and Conditions

Dealing With Knee Pain? Here Are Exercises That Can Help You Manage The Pain And Strengthen Your Knee Muscles

17 June 2016 by Vernon Foster

Knee pains can be caused by different things including physical injuries and medical conditions like osteoarthritis. While there is not much you can do about the cause of your pain, there is so much that you can do to manage it. For instance, you can put yourself under an exercise program that will help you curb the irritation in your knees. In addition to helping you deal with the pain, some exercises will also help you strengthen your knee muscles. The following guide explains about the exercises and how you can do them at home.

Pain Management Exercises

You can manage the pain by doing the following:

• Straighten Your Legs While You Are Seated – Sit on a chair and maintain a good posture. Raise one of your legs and straighten it. Maintain the position, and as you do, start counting numbers from one to ten. When you get to ten, lower your leg slowly, switch to the other leg and repeat the process.  Do this exercise every time you are seated or most of the time. And if you find that the exercise is too easy, attach weights to your ankles.
• Stretch Your Legs While You Are Seated On The Floor – While seated on the floor, straighten your legs on the floor. Raise one knee slowly towards your face until you feel that it is totally stretched. Hold the knee in the bent position for about five seconds and straighten the leg once more. Hold it in that position for another five seconds before moving to the other leg and doing the same.
• Take A Walk – Taking a 10 minute walk each day can help you relive the pain in your knees, especially pain that is related to osteoarthritis. When you walk, you are slowly rebuilding the cartilage in your knees. Cartilage is a spongy tissue that absorbs shock in your knees.  If the cartilage is damaged, stiffness and pain kick in. By walking, you also reduce weight. A reduction in weight leads to a reduction in stress and pressure in the knees, which result in less pain.

Muscle Strengthening Exercises

Making your knee muscles stronger will keep the pain away. Here are a few exercises you can try to strengthen the muscles:

• Tighten Your Thigh Muscles – While lying straight on the floor, straighten your legs. Then flex the thigh muscles of your right leg and hold it tense for about five seconds. Repeat ten times and switch to your left leg. Two sets of the exercise for each leg should be enough. This exercise is also called the quad set since you are stretching the quadriceps muscles.
• Squeeze A Pillow Between Your Knees – Position a pillow between your knees and squeeze your knees to squish the pillow. Hold your position for 5 seconds, relax, and squish again. Repeat ten times.

Note that relieving knee pain is a step by step process. Hence do not get frustrated if the pain is not gone within the first day. 

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