What if you could prevent knee pain before it even starts? These prehab exercises are the key, so named for their preventive benefits.
Wall Squats: Parallel
Equipment: Exercise Ball 2 of 8
Place an exercise ball between your body and a wall. Bring your legs forward with your feet parallel and legs hip-width apart. Reach your arms out in front of you, or place them on your hips. Inhale as you squat down until your quads become parallel to the floor. Exhale as you return to standing.
When squatting, make sure you're positioned with your back completely upright. When lifting, create even more resistance by feeling your feet grounded into the floor and pulling in your belly slowly as you lift your legs back to standing.
8 to 12 reps
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Your Next TriathlonWall Squats: Wide
Equipment: Exercise Ball 3 of 8
Place an exercise ball between your body and a wall, with your feet positioned in a wide stance, turned slightly outward. Place your hands on your hips or interlaced behind your head. Inhale and squat down.
You may squat lower in this version than in the parallel version, if you are able. Try to take your bottom lower to the ground, if you feel ready, without compromising your posture. Exhale as you return to standing. On the last rep, hold the squat for an extra 5 to 10 seconds. Breathe as you hold, and maintain an upright posture in your back.
8 to 12 reps
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Your Next TriathlonSingle Leg Balance Series
Equipment: None 4 of 8
Standing with ample space around your body, begin with your feet planted parallel to each other and sit-bone-width apart (less than hip-width). Lift your right leg straight upward while also reaching your arms to the ceiling. Hold this position, and try to balance on your left leg. From there, bring your right leg back down, and continue reaching it behind you as your body comes forward. Stretch your arms to a T-position parallel to the floor. Hold and balance on the standing leg.
Think of reaching in all directions while maintaining a center support through your trunk. From there, bring the right leg back toward the floor as you move your trunk upright and bring your arms to your side. Take a pause.
Continue by taking your right leg out to the side, and moving your upper body to the other side with your arms spread wide in a star position. Hold and balance on the standing leg. Return back to start, shake it out and repeat on the other side.
2 reps on each side, twice a day
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Your Next TriathlonNerve Glide with Theraband
Equipment: Theraband 5 of 8
Lie on your back, holding a band stretched over the bottom of the toes of one foot. Press your elbows down to the ground. Reach the foot with the band straight up, while your other leg is stretched out on the floor. Bend the resting leg if you are not as flexible. Inhale and push your toes up to the ceiling through the band. Exhale as you pull the toes back, feeling your heel and the entire back of your leg reaching to the ceiling.
Work through the full range of motion in your foot, while maintaining as straight a leg as possible. Move in a slow and deliberate manner. The idea is to glide the movement, not to power through it.
20 reps on each leg, twice a day
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Your Next TriathlonHeel Glide with Theraband
Equipment: Theraband 6 of 8
Lie on your back with a band stretched over one foot. Reach the foot up to the ceiling, with your elbows pressed into the ground. Inhale as you pull your knee toward your chest, while keeping the bottom of your foot facing the ceiling. Exhale as you reach back up from the back of your leg all the way through the heel.
Move slowly, and feel the movement deep in your hip as you bend the knee. Think of pulling your sit bone away and down toward the foot that is on the floor. As you reach back up through the leg, keep your hip anchored and feel the stretch through the back of your leg.
5 to 8 reps on each leg, twice a day
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Your Next TriathlonFootwork
Equipment: Pilates Reformer 7 of 8
The Pilates reformer is a great way to align, strengthen and lengthen the body while using low impact movements. This creates a perfect setting for optimal knee health.
This series of footwork on focuses on the alignment of the body, especially the foot, ankle, knee, hip and pelvis. It works your feet and leg muscles, and your pelvic floor and core will also naturally engage while pushing out the reformer. Pilates footwork is used by many therapists for knee rehabilitation, and it is even more beneficial for keeping knees healthy before pain starts.
First, move from having your feet positioned parallel from your heels and toes to placing the heels together and, finally, to spreading the feet wide on the heels and toes. Keeping your lower body gliding in an efficient way is crucial to healthy knees.
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Your Next TriathlonHipwork
Equipment: Pilates Reformer 8 of 8
In daily life and in training, if the body has difficulty supporting itself through the trunk, support will be misdirected to joints like your knees and their supporting soft tissue. Misalignments and instability, a precursor to developing knee pain, are easily addressed in exercises performed on the Pilates reformer.
While lying on the reformer with your feet in the straps, use your legs and core to push the carriage out with springs attached for resistance. Pelvis stability and core control are challenged as the legs move from frog position to leg circles and openings.
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Your Next Triathlon8 of 8
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