Strengthen Legs Without Knee Pain - Standing Lunge
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Many people know they need to bend "right" but don't because it hurts their knees.
Bending right will not hurt knees. It will help fix one of the things that has been injuring them - bad bending habits which pressure and grind the joint.
Good bending will also give your knees the exercise they (and you) need.
Some knee patients are told to never "bend right" with a half-squat or lunge because it is bad for the knee. There are specific things about bending and straightening the knee that can increase certain kinds of pain, to be covered in future posts. Use your brain and try the following gently and safely. Done right, it should reduce knee pressure, not increase it.
How To Lunge:
- Stand with one foot far in front of the other. Both feet face forward. (Left photo.)
- Feet remain normal width from side-to-side, not directly in line front-to-back.
- Lift your back heel. Don't turn the back toes outward. Look at your back foot and check.
- Tuck your hip under (click "neutral spine" label for posts explaining how). You will feel a far better stretch and strengthener.
- Bend both knees to lower straight downward. Don't touch back knee to the floor. Use leg muscles. Watch your front knee and keep it over your front heel, not sliding forward. (Right photo.)
- Don't let your front knee sway inward.
- Keep upper body upright and straight. (Right photo.)
- Lower and rise several times, then switch legs. Keep feet still, not stepping forward and back.
Tips:
- To keep healthy knee positioning for the front knee, peek downward to see your front knee and foot.
- You should be able to see your front toes all the way through the bend.
- If your knee slides forward covering your toes, you are shifting weight to your knee joint and off your leg muscles. This is one of two common ways to increase knee pain while bending. Letting the front knee sway inward is another.
- Keep front knee steady over your front ankle, not sliding forward or inward. You will strengthen and stabilize your knees and legs instead of hurt them. You will feel more muscle use when you keep healthful positioning.
Lunge is a Lifestyle, not an Exercise to "do" 10 Times:
No need to go to a gym to do lunges. Use the lunge for daily bending around the house. It will add up to many lunges every day, built-in as fitness as a lifestyle. The posts How Often Should You Be Healthy? and Bending Right is Fitness as a Lifestyle give ideas of how to use healthy bending for normal daily life.
Benefits of the Standing Lunge:
- Strengthen leg muscles
- Strengthen the knee
- Stop harmful forces on the knees from bad bending
- Stretch the front of the hip of the rear leg
- Stretch the Achilles tendon and foot of the back leg
- Learn knee stabilization
- Practice balance
- Retrain healthful bending for daily life - transferring to function instead of just being an arbitrary exercise - free exercise all day
- Retrain straight upper body position for bending - more functional exercise
- Provide beneficial general exercise, warming which makes further movement easier, and healthful body movement.
Have fun practicing this now. You will need the standing lunge for tomorrow's Fast Fitness - Quick Warm Up. Enjoy.
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Read and contribute your own success stories of these methods. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail" (under trumpet) upper right.
For answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class spaces for personal evaluation. Top students may apply to certify through DrBookspan.com/Academy. See Dr. Bookspan's Books.
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Read and contribute your own success stories of these methods. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail" (under trumpet) upper right.
For answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class spaces for personal evaluation. Top students may apply to certify through DrBookspan.com/Academy. See Dr. Bookspan's Books.
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Photo © copyright Dr. Bookspan from the book Healthy Martial Arts
Labels: achilles stretch, feet, hip stretch, knee, leg strength, leg stretch, lunge, neutral spine, squat, strength
5 Comments:
At Friday, August 03, 2007 8:36:00 AM,
Anonymous said…
"Lunges are my new “daddy”. I really tried to use these yesterday for everything from putting stuff in the trash to petting the kindest soul in the world, our Golden Retriever". Besides the strengthening, I really enjoy the stretch in my hips. When I'm done, these "older than dirt" hips feel loose and like I'm 18 years old again.
At Friday, August 03, 2007 2:25:00 PM,
Al said…
I agree--these lunges are great! I'm trying to apply them in every situation I can think of. What about when tying shoes (or picking up something light right in front of you)? Is it OK to bend forward from the hips while using this lunge in order to reach your shoes?
-- Al
At Wednesday, August 08, 2007 7:11:00 PM,
Anonymous said…
Al,
Not sure what Dr. Bookspan might say but, yes, I still have to bend slightly from time to time even when I use the lunges. LOL, I'm not gentically inclined to avoid this completely and I'm fairly athletically inclined.
However, I think the real point is that lunges minimize the degree of forward bending and eliminate some forward bending completely. As Dr. Bookspan likes to point out, think how many times we typically have a need to bend completely over in a given day. I've actually been anal enough to count and my record so far is 78. If I can use the lunge to completely eliminate 2/3's of those situations and reduce the "degree" of bend on the other 1/3, then I've saved my more poor discs/joints many, many, many pounds of unnecessary pressure.
To wrap up this lengthy post, work on tying your shoes by taking your foot and putting it across a bent leg while standing up. LOL, I'm getting reasonably close to accomplishing this with some grace.
At Tuesday, August 28, 2007 1:00:00 PM,
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM said…
Al, Good work.
Keeping upper body comfortably upright for shoes and retrieving things gives better stretch from the hip and functional upper back health. Leaning forward in a good way to reach while upright is different from rounding and straining forward as David points out above. An illustration is in the post Leg Exercise That Helps Your Back - Why The Lunge?. Healthy mobility for real life over arbitrary exercises with rigid rules.
David, right about standing for shoes and socks - Ancient Shoe Exercise for Hip Stretch and Balance. Can vary this by holding leg in front with upper body straight. Or try the Russian method - jump into pants, both legs at once :-)
At Wednesday, January 14, 2009 12:32:00 PM,
Anonymous said…
Strangely enough, lunging and squats aggravated my disc bulge, which I am now trying to fix. My left ankle was injured in an auto-pedestrian accident 17 years ago and ever since the compensatory right side of my body has suffered -- I have almost NO strength in my right leg muscles, i.e., can't squat, can't lunge without excruciating pain or holding onto something. What are your suggestions for getting the benefit from these while strengthening the muscles at the same time to do them independently?
Thanks in advance,
fk
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