Injuries to your knee and leg often require physical therapy exercises to improve chances of recovery. Start with simple exercises such as slowly bending your knee and progress slowly to the use of machines and free weights. Failure to follow the instructions of your doctor and physical therapists in on technique, intensity and frequency can jeopardize your recovery. Plan a daily workout to strengthen your knee and leg into your daily schedule.
Beginning Stretches
Basic stretches and range-of-motion exercises strengthen you knee and leg muscles without placing too much strain on them. Physical therapy typically starts with basic non-weight-bearing stretches that rely on the weight of your leg for resistance. For instance, seated knee extensions strengthen and stretch the muscles around the knee. This exercise requires you to slowly bend and straighten your knee while you sit in a chair. If a stretch or exercise causes pain, decrease the intensity.
Advanced Stretches and Strengthening
As the strength in your knee improves, your therapist advances you to standing stretches and exercises. Standing exercises typically work on strengthening the muscles around your knee, improving your balance and knee stability for walking. Stand close to a chair, table or wall while performing standing stretches so you have something to hold onto for balance. A standing quadriceps stretch helps build balancing strength while increasing the flexibility of your knee. Heath Brown, a physical therapist for Rehabilitation Today in Bradford, Pennsylvania, advises patients not to practice any stretching exercise that requires you to bend your knee more than 90 degrees -- such as quadriceps stretches --until you get permission from your doctor or physical therapist. A quadriceps stretch requires you to stand on one leg while you pull the foot of your other knee toward your buttocks.
Advanced Strengthening
When you can perform advanced exercises that strengthen your leg and knee using your body weight, you can progress to weight machines and free weights. Plan to start with a small weight and a high amount of repetitions. Only increase the weight as your strength improves.
Cardiovascular Exercise
Non-weight-bearing activities such as cycling and swimming provide an excellent cardio workout to build both strength and endurance of your leg and knee muscles. Start by riding an exercise bike or walking in a pool for 10 minutes. As your strength and endurance improves, increase the duration or intensity of your exercise. Increase the intensity by raising the tension on the exercise bike or by turning your walk in the pool into a jog.
Considerations
Do not rush your recovery after a knee or leg injury. If you do too much too soon, you may worsen your injury, delay your recovery or increase your risk of a second injury. Take the instructions provided by your physical therapist and doctor seriously, only doing the activities they give you permission to perform.
References
- Heath Brown; Rehabilitation Today; Bradford, Pennsylvania
- American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons; Knee Exercises; February 2009
- American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons; Knee Arthroscopy Exercise Guide; 2000
- Ohio State University Medical Center; Leg Strengthening Exercises; May 2007
