The Best At Home Workout For Knee Pain | Level 1
Our Level 1 workout for knee pain is designed to limit the impact that goes through your knee joints in a safe and challenging environment. Each exercise was chosen to help improve movement patterns, mobility, and strength to take pressure off your knees and build the confidence in your body's ability to do all of your favorite activities. We will work on strengthening you glute max, glute med, single leg balance, and core strength as well as introduce and practice the hip hinge, squat, and lunge movement patterns. By committing to improving these movements, we’ve been able to help our community solve years of knee pain – even when nothing else has worked.
Equipment Needed
Our workouts are designed to be performed with minimal equipment. With that being said, to get the most out of your workout for knee pain I suggest having the following equipment available.
Foam Roller (I love the Trigger Point Brand)
A 12" Step
Bench, Chair or Couch
Medium to Heavy Weight
Click Here To Find All The Equipment You Need For The Perfect Home Gym
Workout For Knee Pain Warm Up
Every workout for knee pain pain should begin with a proper warm up. The following exercises will help prepare your muscles and joints for the following workout. Grab a timer and perform each movement for 1 minute (each side if applicable).
Hip Flexor Stretch
Used to improve flexibility and mobility of your hip flexors and quads which are commonly tight in those with knee pain.
Side Lunge Hip Mobilization
Further mobilize your hips joints and prepare for many of the movements performed in this workout.
Workout For Knee Pain Strength Exercises
This workout for knee pain is designed to strengthen your glutes, legs, and core to protect your knees as you move through your day. Use your timer and perform each exercise for 1 minute. Performing slow and maintaining control is more important than number of reps.
The Glute Bridge
Strong glutes are absolutely essential for less knee pain and better overall knee health. The Glute Bridge is the safest and most effective way to build strength in your glutes and hamstrings.
Clamshells
A safe an effective glute med strengthening exercise. Strong glute medius muscles supports your body in the single leg stance to prevent your knee from caving inward while walking, running, etc.
Toe Taps
A functional exercise to improve balance, coordination, and single leg strength. You will feel this move in the glute med (outside hip) of your stance leg. If you lose your balance simply return to the starting position and begin again.
Kettlebell March
All movement starts at the core which is why core strengthening needs to be part of our workout for knee pain. Weighted carries are one of my favorite functional core strengthening exercise. Use a medium to heavy weight to improve the effectiveness of this exercise.
Full Body Movement Patterning
Improving movement patterns (how we move) limits impact on your joints as you move through the day. These foundational movement patterns in this workout for knee pain will later be used in later workouts for knee pain and to build full body strength.
Hip Hinge
Learning to hip hinge helps keep your center of gravity over your weight bearing joints to limit impact on your knee.. It also forces you to engage muscles of the posterior chain (glutes and hamstrings), which is important in solving knee pain.
Click Here To Learn More About How To Perform The Hip Hinge
The Box Squat
A full body strength and mobility move. For knee pain, focus on finding the right squat stance for your body type and pressing your knees out as you perform the squat.
Click Here To Learn How To Perform The Squat Without Knee Pain
The Step Up
A safe, effective, and functional exercise for knee pain. Focus on pressing off the front foot (not 'toeing off' the back).
This workout for knee pain is meant to be performed in a circuit. After you’ve completed the first round, start back with your glute bridge and perform series again (don’t do warm up twice). Workout should take 25-30 minutes to complete.Always keep in mind that the goal of these workouts is to provide a solution for knee pain. The last thing we want is to aggravate your knee pain by progressing our exercises too quickly.
Once you feel strong and confident with out Level 1 workout it’s time to move on. Find our Level 2,3, and 4 workouts at the linke below.
