Top 4 Exercises for Knee Pain (moderate strengthening)

April 23, 2020

Do you suffer from aches and pains in your knees? Or have you been told you have “Patello-femoral” joint pain (or “anterior knee pain”)?

If so, strengthening the muscles surrounding your knees and hips is often a vital component to reducing your pain and making a full recovery. 

For some people, you might need to start with very basic strengthening exercises, which I outline in this blog/video:

->> Top 5 Exercises for Knee Pain (introductory level exercises)

If you’re ready to advance to the next level of strengthening, this video/blog is just for you!

Read This First! Before Knee Strengthening Exercises…

Before you dive into the 4 exercises in the video, it’s very important that you keep one key point in mind…

->> Key Point: the exercises should NOT cause knee pain or add to your discomfort! If they do cause pain, make sure you stop or modify the exercises.

Pain-free strengthening is the key here!

That being said, let’s take a look at these 4 favorite exercises.

Top 4 Exercises for Knee Pain

I’m going to show you all of these exercises in detail in the video, but here’s the quick overview:

->> Exercise #1: Squats

->> Exercise #2: Step-Ups

->> Exercise #3: Reverse Slider Lunges

->> Exercise #4: Side-Stepping w/ Resistance

For full details, please check out the video… I don’t want to try to explain all the details of these exercises in writing, but I will point out a few more key points.

Key Points for Knee/Hip Exercises

->> Point #1: You hip and knee alignment are extremely important! I’ll discuss this during the video, so make sure you follow along.

->> Point #2: Strengthening should only be performed 3 days/week. If these exercises are demanding enough that they challenge your muscles (without pain!), you’ll want to take the following day off to rest and recover.

For most people, doing strengthening exercises 3 days/week, with days off in between, is a great approach!

->> Point #3: Start slow, then build up your reps and sets. In the video, I’ll talk about starting with 1 set of 10 reps and then building up to 2-3 sets of 10 reps.

Also keep in mind that most of the exercises can be progressed to be more challenging over time. 

For example, you might want to start with shallow squats and then advance to deeper squats as you gain strength and confidence.

Same thing with step-ups: start with a smaller step of 4-6 inches, then build up to an 8-inch or 10-inch step.

If you keep all these things in mind, these exercises should be very helpful!

And if you’d like more information about how to strengthening the knee and hip muscles in order to reduce your knee pain, check out this dedicated web page: https://physicaltherapyspokane.com/knee-pain/

Best of luck! – Luke Gordon, DPT (Physical Therapist – Owner of Gordon Physical Therapy)