Exercise Daily – When you have bad knees, losing weight can prove to be a great challenge. Moreover, it keeps you from being active and affects your overall health. Besides, many studies suggest that extra pressure is added on the joints of overweight people which causes stress and hampers their fitness level.
However, in this situation, you should not stop any physical activity as it is one of the most essential elements if you want to restore knee function, lose weight and improve your knee condition. Here you may check out the research on how essential exercising is for people with bad knees(Click Me).
So the question arises, how one can exercise with bad knees to lose weight? Well, we did all the background research and made a comprehensive guide that includes the best exercises for bad knees to lose weight.
Moreover, we have also included the exercises you should avoid and a few tips that you should follow when you have bad knees.
Best Exercises For Bad Knees To Lose Weight
Below we have enlisted the 8 best exercises for bad knees to lose weight and they are as follow:
-
Strength Training:
Studies suggest that the amount of muscles in the body continues to diminish due to ageing. Fat constitutes more of your weight, slowing down your body’s calorie-burning ability. But the muscles are said to consume more calories than fat, so you can increase the capacity of your body to burn more calories by building muscle through strength training.
Muscle development also enhances the body’s ability to withstand shocks and impacts and may help an arthritic knee. The exercises you can include in your strength training are weight lifting
-
Water-Exercises:
Water exercises like swimming and water aerobic are among the best exercises for bad knees to lose weight (Source). These exercises will not only help you to lose weight but also help to strengthen your knees’ muscles, reduce joint pain, and stiffness.
According to Studies, water exercises unbind the joints, preventing the stress and impact of hard ground surfaces, and allowing you to move with ease and freedom. Also, this protects you from inflamed knee joints. Besides, if you need extra help, then water weights and assistive gears are available at your disposal.
-
Elliptical Trainer:
Essentially, an elliptical trainer is an ideal alternative for people who want to avoid swimming with bad knees. Using an elliptical trainer, you can burn approximately the same amount of calories as you would on a treadmill.
Also, with an elliptical trainer, there are fewer chances of knee injury compared to a treadmill. Here check out more equipment that is good for bad knees (Click Me).
-
Yoga:
Yoga is the mother of all exercises that have tons of health benefits. It helps in alleviating inflammation in your knee joints while simultaneously helping you to lose weight. The research found that people who perform yoga have less interleukin-6 level, a protein that induces inflammation, in their blood.
Besides, the unbearable swelling and inflexibility of arthritic joints are due to inflammation. Also, Yoga provides muscle strength and endurance that can help keep you going. Hence, this is an exercise holding loads of health benefits especially for treating bad knees.
-
Walking:
Walking is another effective exercise for bad knees to lose weight. It’s a low-impact exercise that assists you in burning calories. Compared to running, walking is a better exercise as it usually puts less pressure on your joints. However, while walking, you must ensure that you are wearing the right pair of shoes. Because wearing uncomfortable shoes can increase complications for you.
Moreover, we would recommend you to walk on a grassy surface as it puts less impact on your knees. Also, ensure that you don’t walk with your toes facing out to the sides.
-
Cycling:
For people with bad knees, cycling or riding a stationary bike is a safe and effective option. It is an ideal alternative to running that helps you burn calories. Allocate at least 30 mins of your day 5 times a week to cycling if you want to see positive outcomes.
Consequently, a range of motions is promoted in your knees, hips, and ankle helping to cope with bad knee problems and losing some pounds.
-
High Intensity Interval Training:
We would recommend high intensity interval training (HIIT) to people who are confident about their fitness level. This training can be a great deal if you want to shed abdominal muscles. To perform HIIT you would need a stationary bike or an elliptical trainer as it will keep your knees protected while helping to shed some extra pounds.
-
Stretching:
Lastly, stretching makes it to our list of the best exercises for bad knees to lose weight. Stretching can help you lower knee stiffness and pain in leg muscles, hence, it essential to perform stretching after exercising. The stretches that can help your bad knee and other muscles include standing hamstring stretch and knee quadriceps stretch.
What Are The Benefits Of Exercising For Bad Knees To Lose Weight?
You cannot find a better medication-free solution than exercise to treat bad knees. Here’s how exercise is helpful:
- Helps in lowering the stiffness, pain and swelling in your knees.
- Assist in strengthening knee muscles and other muscles in the surrounding.
- Promotes a range of motions in your joints.
As mentioned earlier, that extra weight puts pressure on the joints causing stress. For this reason, exercising is so crucial to lose weight.
Shedding some pounds from your knees will help relieve discomfort and heal your knees. Plus, the muscles around the knee are also strengthened to alleviate knee pain.
For instance, the shock-reduction position normally played by meniscus or cartilage in the knee can be offset by strong quadriceps.
Research from 2018 indicates that vigorous exercise for arthritic knee pain sometimes leads to better results than medications, surgeries, and injections.
Another benefit of exercising for bad knees is that it keeps you from severe side effects that medications and surgeries might cause you.
Besides, research also indicates that exercise decreases the development of knee osteoarthritis.
In conclusion, most fitness experts recommend choosing exercise therapy as the primary option for treating bad knees because it holds a ton of health benefits.
Things You Should Consider If You Have Bad Knees:
There is no doubt exercise is the best remedy to treat bad knees, however, it is important that you are doing the right one. Besides, there are some other factors that you need to take care of while exercising. Below, we have enlisted a few crucial tips and exercises you should avoid. Let’s see what they are:
Exercises You Must Avoid:
Above, we mentioned exercises for bad knees to lose weight and in this section we will be mentioning a few must-avoid exercises. Ensure you never perform them if you have knee pain.
- Deep Squats
- Running
- Lunges
Tips you Must Follow:
-
Keeping Your Posture Right:
One of the most crucial factors, if you want to make exercising beneficial for your knees, is to keep your posture right. Exercising with the wrong posture can increase knee pain, so you must avoid it.
-
Wear The Right Shoes:
Exercising with ill-fitted or uncomfortable shoes can increase complications for you. While exercising, you must be wearing shoes that offer enough support, cushioning, and maneuverability.
Besides, if you have flat feet, then we have made a list of the best fitness shoes for you (Click Me).
-
Warm up Before Exercising:
You must have seen fitness enthusiasts and professionals warm up before exercise because it promotes blood circulation and increases your body temperature. In this way, you can exercise better because warming up makes your joints prepare for any physical activity.
Final Words:
Bad knees should never be the reason you stop working on your fitness and give up on your ultimate goals. For this reason, we made this guide to provide you with the best exercises for bad knees to lose weight.
Having said that, we would also recommend that you consult your doctor for the right guidance. Maybe, not all the exercises mentioned above are right for you, therefore, it is essential to confirm the right movements.
In the end, we would like to thank you for taking out your precious time and reading our article. We hope that this article was helpful for you. You can give us your feedback about the article in the comments.
