I’ve damaged ligaments in my knee. What exercises can I do to keep fit?
I’ve damaged knee ligaments what kind of exercise can I do to help keep fit? I was very active playing football, squash, and hill walking until I injured my knee ligaments recently. I am booked in for physio in early July. What exercise can I do in the meantime, I can feel myself getting unfit already and its only been a few weeks!
August 26th, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Crikey!….careful, I have Hydrocephalus and have had about 40-ish operations on my head but NOTHING was as painful as damaging my knee ligaments…..keep a strap or a sports strap on it and be careful not to move the patella.
Make sure to rest A LOT however and always try to wear a little bit of support on that knee in future, I’ve had several incidences when it’s flaired up again…..I would definatley avoid squash, football and running for a while…a month or so….actually I would avoid street running altogether…it will murder your knees, hips and legs in general.
August 26th, 2010 at 4:10 pm
If you have access to a gym, you can do many exercises to build the muscles in your quads, hamstrings and calves. These will help to compensate for the looseness in your ligaments. I damaged my knee ligaments years ago and that is what the PT did for me. Using very light weights (or none at all), you can do calf raises, knee lifts and hamstring curls. Strengthen your adductor/abductor muscles with side leg lifts and side leg across lifts while standing. You can also use stretchy bands to do those exercises if a gym isn’t available. Stationary bikes and workouts in water are low impact and would help as well. Just remember to be cautious as you don’t want to injure yourself further.
August 26th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
The thing to do is to maintain your quads (the big muscles at the front of your thigh). Sit on the floor with your legs straight out, put a hand under your knee and try to press it into the floor. You will soon be able to tense the muscles without the hand. Hold each contraction for a count of 10, repeat as often as you like.
Then you could try tensing the muscles and lifting your ankle a few inches, keeping your leg straight. Hold for 10, lower, repeat. Make sure your knee stays in alignment and pull your toes up towards your knee. This will help these muscles.
You could also try swimming front or back crawl (NOT breast stroke) providing you can get in and out of the pool safely and don’t try pushing hard off the wall or bending your knees right up but it’s difficult to advise you without knowing how bad the damage is or which ligaments are damaged and obviously this is more risky.
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