I’m going to go through a great exercise you can do to strengthen your knees.
If you have difficulty or it is painful to go through squatting movements, here is an excellent loop tubing exercise that you can do that will strengthen your knee and put a lot less pressure on your knee compared to squatting. It’s called the Tubing Reverse Lunge.
The squat can be a very hard exercise on the knees. As you squat down, a lot of pressure is placed on the knee joints. The squat can be painful and lead to knee injuries if you are not strong in the muscles surrounding the knees.
The exercise in this post, the tubing reverse lunge, places less stress on the knees and helps build strength around your knees to work your way towards squats. Not interested in doing the squat exercise? Think about every time you need to bend down during the day. Strengthening around your knees will help keep you mobile and pain-free for your daily activities.
Click here to watch the YouTube video.
Tubing Full Reverse Lunge
Start with the tubing in the front rack position. This means holding the tubing with both hands up at shoulder height. Step on the tubing with your right foot. Step back with your left foot and then bring your left knee down. Try to get both knees to 90 degrees, if possible. Move into a lunge position and then return to the start.
Tubing Full Reverse Lunge
Overhead Press
For a progression, you can add an overhead press at the top.
Overhead Press
Tubing Half Reverse Lunge
Level one would be from that front rack position, holding the band at shoulder height, stepping back into that lunge, and coming back up.
Make a half reverse lunge if you can’t get into that deep lunge. Step back and bring your knee halfway to the floor before coming back up and stepping forward.
Tubing Half Reverse Lunge
Tubing Full Reverse Lunge with Overhead Press
A progression you can make is to have the tubing overhead throughout the entire movement. Step back and go into that full lunge.
Tubing Full Reverse Lunge with Overhead Press
Tubing Half Reverse Lunge with Overhead Press
If you cannot make a deep lunge, o into that half lunge position and have the tubing overhead, lunge back up, and then step back up.
Tubing Half Reverse Lunge with Overhead Press
The overhead position works those shoulder blade muscles and challenges the important core. The stronger your core, the better you will be able to recover when it comes to knee pain. Also, it will be easier to prevent knee pain if you have a great core.
There you go. You can do a full reverse lunge or a half reverse lunge and add that overhead reverse lunge, full lunge, or half lunge. If you have difficulty squatting, give that loop tubing reverse lunge a go, and you can pick whatever variation works best for you.
Final Word
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Take care!
Rick Kaselj, MS.
If you are looking for a program to help you overcome knee pain, check out Knee Pain Solved.