Resistance Exercises For Bad Hips & Knees

Resistance exercise is a critical component of a rehabilitation program for an injured hip or knee because it strengthens the joints and surrounding muscles to pre-injury levels or beyond, allowing you to return to normal activities as quickly as possible and potentially preventing recurring problems. Consult your doctor for a proper diagnosis and then a physical therapist to design a resistance-training program that's tailored to your needs.

Isometric Hip Exercises

Pressing your leg into a wall or another sturdy object at various angles, or lifting your leg and holding it in a fixed position for a specific period of time strengthens your injured hip joint isometrically. Perform these exercises early in your rehabilitation program, when moving your leg is still painful. Hold each muscle contraction for at least five to 10 seconds.

Isometric Knee Exercises

Isometric exercises are also beneficial for rehabilitating knee injuries, such as ligament sprains or muscle strains. These exercises should target the quadriceps, or quads, and hamstring muscles, which attach near the front and back of your knee, respectively. To contract the quads, sit in a chair with your feet on the floor and press your toes into a wall or lock your knees forcefully, and lie face down with your heels under your bed and press them upward to work the hamstrings.

Dynamic Hip Exercises

Dynamic hip exercises involve moving the affected joint repeatedly instead of holding your leg in one position. Lying on your side and lifting your top or bottom leg, for example, targets the muscles that abduct and adduct your hip, respectively; and drawing your knee toward your chest from a standing position works the hip flexors. Traditional resistance exercises such as deadlifts, the leg press, lunges, squats and stepups target the hip extensors, which include the gluteus maximus and hamstring muscles.

Dynamic Knee Exercises

The same exercises that work your hip extensors also target the quads, which serve as the major knee extensors. Additionally, performing leg extensions, which involves extending your knees repeatedly on a machine designed for the exercise, strengthens the quads.

Perform leg curls to isolate the hamstrings. These involve lying on a leg-curl machine with your heels under the padded foot bar and repeatedly flexing your knees to arc the bar toward your hamstrings.

Recommendations

Perform isometric exercises every day as soon as your doctor allows you to do so after suffering your injury, and then add dynamic exercises several times per week when moving through normal ranges of motion no longer causes pain. Use only your body weight for the dynamic exercises at first and gradually add resistance -- using ankle weights, a barbell, dumbbells, a resistance band or a weight machine -- over time. Check with your doctor if you're not making progress or if you suffer any setbacks.