00:00Hi, how are you doing? In today's video, I'm going to show you three safe exercises that anyone can
00:06do to strengthen their knees. If you don't know me, nice to meet you. I'm Dr. Alexandre Mota.
00:12I'm a physical therapist. I'm an osteopath and it's great to have you here. Take a look at this
00:17question. Dr. Alexandre Mota, I never miss one of your videos and I always share all of them. I've
00:23helped a lot of people. I'd like some exercises to strengthen the knee and legs. I've had COVID
00:29three times. Wow. And I feel like my legs have gotten weak. I've already made a video talking
00:35about how to relieve heaviness and numbness in the legs after COVID. I've linked it in the card
00:40for you to watch after you finish this video. Before exercising, you need to understand that
00:45your knee is always in a tug of war situation. Remember that game you played as a kid?
00:54That's it. Where two teams pull on a rope to see who can pull harder. And sometimes everyone is
01:01pulling so hard that the rope doesn't even move. Everyone tries, but the rope just stays balanced.
01:08So that's what's happening with your knee. Pay attention here. Look. Here we have a knee viewed from
01:15the side. This bone up here is the thigh bone, the femur. This bone down here is the tibia, the
01:22shin
01:22bone. And here this little triangle is the patella. It's the kneecap. And if we look, let me grab my
01:29little red marker here. If we look here in the front, we have the thigh muscles, the quadriceps, which are
01:36actually four muscles, right? Pulling here at the front part of the knee. And we have several muscles
01:46that go behind the knee. In other words, the knee is surrounded by muscles. We have the muscles at the
01:54back of the thigh running behind the knee here. And we also have the calf muscles. A lot of people
02:02don't
02:02know, but the calf muscles, the gastrocnemius muscles, they come from the foot, form the calf,
02:09and go up to the knee. So look at the difference in strength between the muscles in the front and
02:16the
02:16muscles in the back. And the result of this, when you don't work on it, you have an imbalance in
02:22your
02:22knee, is that these big muscles in the back start to accumulate tension and the muscles in the front
02:29start to get weak. And then that tug of war, that balance of forces starts to disappear. Your knee
02:37becomes unbalanced. Then it starts to wear out. You start to have a series of problems, tendinitis,
02:43that you weren't supposed to have. So to strengthen your knee, you need two things. Let me grab the green
02:49one here. It's easier for you to see. You need two things to strengthen your knee. The first one, of
02:57course,
02:57especially in the muscles in front of your knee, you need to improve the strength and control of those
03:03muscles. And the muscles in the back, they need to learn to relax. They need to be more flexible.
03:13So quote unquote, you need stretching.
03:22So there is no strengthening of the knee, no strong knee, without the strength and control of the
03:28muscles in the front and the relaxation, flexibility and stretching of the muscles in the back.
03:34And now that you understand what your knee needs to get stronger, I want you to tell me a little
03:39more
03:40about this pain, this knee problem that's been with you. Can you describe how the pain began?
03:46Was it from a fall? Did it appear suddenly start mild and worsen or begin strong? Can you tell me
03:52what makes this pain worse? And can you tell me what makes this pain better? For example, for a lot
03:58of
03:58people, the knee hurts when you sit for a long time and then get up. For other people, the knee
04:03hurts when
04:04they walk for a long time. For some people, walking actually makes it better. So tell me a little
04:10more here in the comments about what this pain feels like, what this knee problem is like, so I can
04:15help
04:15you. I can answer your question or maybe even record a video answering your question to help you in the
04:22best way possible. And then you need to stay sharp because there are a lot of people for whom I
04:26record
04:27a video answering their question to help them and they don't even know that I answered their question or
04:31that I recorded the video. So to make sure you don't miss the answer to your question, subscribe to the
04:37channel, turn on the notification bell and select all notifications because then YouTube will let you
04:42know when there's a new video and when I answer your question, you'll be notified. You look like a
04:47butler ringing that little bell, Jaime. Jaime? Yes ma'am, so the first exercise will be to improve the strength
04:55and control of the muscles in the front of the thigh, the quadriceps. I made this little drawing here so
05:01we can
05:01have an idea more or less of how the muscles in the front of the knee work. Here I have
05:07three of the
05:08four muscles, okay? Here is a muscle called the vastus lateralis which is on the outside, the vastus
05:15medialis which is on the inside and the rectus femoris and underneath them is the vastus intermedius.
05:20So there are four muscles that attach to the same place. So this exercise I'm going to show you now
05:26will be to strengthen these muscles but working on patalar alignment. And the first exercise we're
05:33going to do is the squat. I know a lot of people are thinking, ah Alexander I can't do squats.
05:39The
05:40doctor said I can't do squats. If I squat it hurts. I can't squat. Calm down, we're going to work
05:46as I
05:46said at the beginning of the video in a safe way. So take some precautions. First, I want you to
05:54pay
05:54attention to how far you can squat without feeling pain. Some people can only squat up to here.
06:03Here if you go past this point you start to feel pain. So you'll do the squat only up to
06:08here where
06:08it doesn't hurt. Alright? Some people stay higher up here. Some people can squat even lower.
06:16So you'll look for a range of motion. A position where you can squat without pain. It doesn't matter
06:24if it's bigger or smaller. What matters is that you're waking up and strengthening these muscles.
06:30Alright? So slowly you start squatting, lowering yourself until it doesn't hurt. You reach the point
06:37where it still doesn't hurt. If you go further it starts to hurt. You will hold this position. Stay
06:43here for between 15 and 30 seconds. Ideally you should stay for 30 seconds. Notice a few things.
06:51Don't let your knee fall inward. Try to keep this alignment. If I look here I can see my knee
06:57is
06:57exactly above my foot. It's in line. The eye, the knee and the foot. If the knee is inward or
07:05outward
07:06it's wrong. I'm putting too much strain on my knee. Keep this alignment and try to stay here for 30
07:13seconds.
07:13If your leg starts to shake or if you can't support your body weight anymore it feels like your muscles
07:19are giving out. It's because you've reached your limit. You've reached your maximum. In that case you sit
07:26down and rest. I want you to do this exercise three to five times a day. It doesn't have to
07:34be all at once.
07:35You can spread this exercise out. Do it throughout the day. Remember that this is a strengthening exercise.
07:42You will start to feel this improvement. Your knee getting steadier and the pain decreasing over the
07:49next few days. So you have to do it every day. I recommend that you start with the minimum. Hold
07:56the squat for 15 seconds or if you start shaking if you can't support your body weight. In other words
08:03if you fail you do this once or twice and observe how your body will react. If you haven't exercised
08:11in
08:11a while your legs might be sore the next day. And if you feel that soreness all over your thigh
08:19it's a
08:20sign that this soreness is strengthening the muscle that you use the muscle you weren't using before.
08:26The second exercise is to start stretching the muscles behind the knee starting with the thigh
08:32muscles. The muscles at the back of the thigh. Okay. For this you will sit in a chair with your
08:41feet flat on
08:42the floor and you will simply let your body lean forward. Try to do it in a way where you
08:50don't bend
08:50your spine. I don't want you to make a c-shape with your spine. You know when you're in the
08:56car and
08:56you're going to adjust the seat and you move it here. And you raise or lower it so you keep
09:04your back
09:04straight the whole time. So you're going to lean forward as if you were adjusting the car seat.
09:12Keep your back straight. Keep your posture elegant and lean forward maintaining the curve in your spine.
09:18Okay. It's like you're sticking your butt out. You'll reach a point where you'll feel a stretch
09:24in your butt and the back of your thigh. That's the stretch we're looking for. If we do that traditional
09:31stretch where you pull put a towel or a strap around your foot and pull a lot of people have
09:37back
09:37problems have sciatic nerve issues and those issues can get worse. This way of stretching here we're
09:44stretching the muscles around the knee but without putting strain on the knee or the back. Sit on the
09:50car seat. You can even put your hands on your knees. The important thing is to keep your back aligned.
09:54Go as far as you can. Do you feel that it's stretching? Great. You should also hold this
10:00position for between 15 and 30 seconds. Ideally you should keep the stretch for about 30 seconds
10:07stretching well. And the third exercise is a stretch for the muscles at the back of the knee.
10:13All of them. For this you will stand up and use a chair. I prefer a chair but you can
10:20use a counter,
10:21a table or a bed. Okay. I prefer a chair because here's the thing. The first thing you're going to
10:28do
10:28is unlock your knees just bend them a little. A lot of people keep their knees fully extended locked
10:35and sometimes it even causes what we call genuri curvatum. That knee that bends backward. I don't
10:42want that. Unlock your knees and remember the car seat. You're going to lean forward keep your back
10:48straight and stick your butt out. Do I prefer the chair? Because of this as you go lower there comes
10:56a
10:56point where you can move the chair a little bit and you still stay well supported. Go down as far
11:02as
11:02you can while keeping your spine aligned, keeping your back straight and feeling the stretch behind
11:07your knee without pain. Okay. If you try to straighten your knee here you'll see that it will hurt and
11:14you'll feel a different kind of pain. A pain that feels like it's burning. We don't need that. With your
11:20knee
11:21unlocked lower your back with your spine straight until you feel the stretch without pain. In this
11:28position you'll also stay between 15 and 30 seconds. So to simplify I suggest you do sets of exercises
11:37every day always starting by improving the strength and control of the muscles in front of your knee with
11:44squats and then doing stretches. First the muscles at the back of your thigh and then all those muscles
11:51that go behind your knee. In fact I've already made a video showing exercises to help those who feel pain
11:57behind the knee. I've linked it in the card and if this video helped you if you learned something new
12:03leave a like here. Your like helps you helps other people and helps our channel grow. And pay attention
12:10because I'm saying this is our channel because I want you to use this video this tip and all the
12:16tips here on the channel to help those who need it. Help someone who is close to you and your
12:22family
12:22at work who is in pain. Bring them here to subscribe to the channel send this video to them and
12:29that way
12:29we can help more and more people. And right here on the side there's a video about knee pain relief
12:35in one
12:35minute where I show how to improve a major cause of knee and meniscus problems. Down below there's a
12:41playlist with all the videos that can help those who feel knee pain. So binge watch. I'll stop here for
12:46now. Big hug and see you next time.
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