Build Bigger Quads with Bad Knees
If “bad knees” is your excuse every leg day, I apologize in advance. You can’t use it as your crutch anymore. Depending on the severity of your knee pain (i.e. a legitimate injury vs. aching every time it rains), rest assured you can still train your quads and continue to see gains.
General Guidelines When Training with Knee Pain
Things to Avoid When Training with Knee Pain
• Plyometric exercises. High-impact plyometric exercises are a no-no (at least for now).
Knee-Friendly Exercises for Bigger, Stronger Quads
Yeah, cardio sucks. But the Airdyne is a great way to pump blood to your quads during your warm-up while keeping your knees in a stable position. The higher your seat, the less your knees have to bend. Find a height that works for you so you can pedal without knee pain. Do a steady 3-5 minutes before lifting. You should be sweating and feel your quads blow up when you’re done.
This subtle movement packs a punch provided you do it optimally.
Loop a resistance band around a squat rig or something sturdy and have the other end behind your knee. Back up until you feel the band pull your knee forward and perform the TKE by bending your knee slightly and extending it. You should be focusing on your quad/VMO as much as possible here.
Perform 15-20 reps for 2-3 sets each side at the beginning and end of your workouts.
Glute work isn’t a common line of action when dealing with knee pain, but it should be. Stronger glutes improve hip and thigh alignment, reducing the sheer force placed on the knee.
Insert monster walks.
You can perform monster walks laterally (side to side) for glute engagement, or backwards for quad destruction.
For glute engagement, place a Hip Circle around your knees and bend them slightly with your feet pointed forward. Take small steps to the side while keeping constant tension on the band. Resist the urge to let your knees cave in by keeping your hips externally rotated and press out against the band throughout your set.Take 5-10 steps to the right then 5-10 steps to the leftfor 3-4 sets.
The second option is to place the band around your ankles and walk backwards with small micro steps, pumping blood to your quads. Take 10-20 steps backwards for 3-4 sets.
Squatting onto a box takes a lot of the pressure out of your knees while providing depth indication. The box (or bench) should be high enough so your hip crease is slightly above your knee when you sit onto it (i.e. your thigh should be higher than parallel with the floor). This will allow you to continue to squat relatively heavy provided you don’t feel any pain in the knees when doing so. That said, this isn’t an excuse to use an absurdly high box and crank out max–effort-ego-quarter squats. Find the range of motion you can perform a pain-free squat in and load it accordingly.
Reverse lunges just feel better on the knees, given the relatively vertical angle of the tibia (shin). Granted, your knees have to travel past your toes for most daily and athletic activities. But as mentioned, forward/back lunges tend to put more sheer force on the knees overtime (especially if you have pre-existing knee pain). For this reason, I tend to favour reverse lunges in most of my programming.
Attach a TRX or suspension trainer to a sled. With your arms straight, hips back, and core braced, walk backward with small micro steps. This is similar to a loaded high-rep TKE and minimizes the force placed on the knees while brutally attacking the quads.
You can perform reverse sled drags at the beginning of your workouts as part of your warm-up or at the end as your finisher.
The Workout: Putting It All Together
A1. TKE (Terminal Knee Extension): 3 sets of 15-20 each leg
A2. Lateral Monster Walks: 3 sets of 10 each direction
Rest 30-45 sec after A1 and A2 have been completed.
B. Box Squat (High Box): 3 sets of 6-10
Rest 2-3 min between sets.
C. Reverse Lunge: 3 sets of 8-12 each leg
Rest 1-2 min between sets.
D. Reverse Sled Drag: 3 sets (walk full length of turf strip and back)
Rest 1-2 min between sets.
Additional Considerations
Summary
Knee pain sucks but it’s not an excuse to sit on your ass. Treat it as an opportunity to strengthen your weak areas and train smarter moving forward.