Resurrect your knees!

We’ve all experienced it at one point or another. Knee pain can be truly crippling and change a person’s lifestyle should the pain become chronic. As athletes the knees are essential in performing lifts, doing cardiovascular work and performing a number of other important movements. When it comes right down to it, knee pain can completely derail your development. But whether you’re experiencing knee pain or you simply want to prevent the issue before it arises, here are some great methods of strengthening your knees.

STEP UP FOR STABILITY

The first plan of attack for trying to fix your knees is an extremely beneficial exercise. The step up with either a barbell on your back or dumbbells in your grasp can be a great remedy for knee pain. For one it helps to develop the muscles around your knee. It also is great for stability work. Performing the exercise with each leg means that the muscles in both limbs are getting one hundred percent of the work at all times. Squats are a great exercises, but sometimes if an individual has a leg that’s more dominant than the other then muscular balance could be off. The step up ensures that both legs are strong to help support your knees.

WORK THE OPPOSING MUSCLE FOR BALANCE

When you’re looking to create powerful legs many people just focus on performing the squat as their means of development. But the reality is that you want to perform exercises that attack both the front or the back muscles of the legs. While squats can work the legs overall, if the movement is performed in a specific way then you could only be targeting your quads. For that reason performing dynamic movements or training the posterior chain through an exercise like deadlift is important to balance out the front and the back muscle of the legs.

STRETCHING CORRECTLY

Many bodybuilders may not even consider it, but stretching before a workout is extremely beneficial. Not only is it great for saving your joints, it can also end up contributing to your overall gains. A dynamic warm up (high knees, arm circles) can help you to not only get the body warm, but also ready your joints and limbs, in this case your legs, for the action ahead. Performing static stretches should be saved for after a workout which can help prevent injuries.

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