Having bad knees Is a real pain.

No pun intended.

It’s happened to me and I am a trainer. They don’t get fixed, they get recovered and then you maintain knee health and get them strong and lean again.  I went from limping at one point to eventually back to cycling, skipping, running and even today sprinting after my workout.

The point is you can have bad knees and definitely get into as good shape as you desire and perform in most feats of fitness and health to a point of balance.

So let’s start with a few pointers on what not to do. If you have bad knees stay away from cycling, skipping, and running. Avoid squats, lunges, and hip raises or thrusts. Essentially you want to avoid anything that requires bending your knees and doing so with impact.

What does that leave you with? To be honest not much. 1st of all you can walk and I would consider keeping it short and walking for 20 to 30 minutes max and then seeing if your knees are OK. If not back off of them. If your knees are critical you really are resting them to recover them and healing them through 20 to 30-minute walks.

Now I get it it’s hard to do weight or fat loss without running or skipping or squats. Not true. I have gotten women and men in their 50s and 60s to shape up without these movements and then corrected them eventually to also be able to do them.

The key really is about keeping within calories and logging them so you hold yourself accountable with your coach, trainer, or yourself.

Back to the exercises, you can’t do push-ups and even planks as they require you to be on your toes putting weight into your legs with pointed toes. So don’t do them either.

Road to Recovery

The road to recovery is twofold.

1 exercise standing upright with no knee bend or minimal knee bend.

2 exercises for your core lying flat on your stomach or on your back.

So phase 1 for months 1 to 3 would look like this

Day 1 

  • Overhead presses
  • Reverse flyes with as minimal a knee bend or no knee bend if possible.
  • Flutters
  • Sit-ups or reverse sit-ups depending on your spinal health
  • 20 to 30 minute walks every day

Day 2 

  • Good mornings with minimal knees bends
  • Back extensions
  • Reverse rear leg raises from the floor
  • Rotations

Day 3 

  • Romanian deadlifts with minimal knee bend
  • Bent over rows
  • Leg raises with core drawn in properly (do these properly as you must do these with a flat back at all times
  • Alternating lying superman’s

The rep ranges can go from intensity of a rep range of 10 reps with weights and if using body weights you can use muscular endurance to shape you up and go as high as 150 reps. If you need ideas to execute these correctly, individually, or simply to understand further.

Please do contact me.