Exercise may be the best medicine for chronic achy knees.

The Best and Worst Exercises for Bad Knees

• By Michele Stanten

"Strengthening the muscles around the joint protects you from injury by decreasing stress on the knee," says Willibald Nagler, MD, chairman of rehabilitation medicine at New York Presbyterian Hospital-Cornell Campus in New York City.

But you must use good form and technique.

The First Commandment

Never bend your legs to a point where your knees stick out past your toes. That puts a lot of pressure under the kneecap. This not only applies to the following exercises but also when you're stretching or doing aerobic activities such as step aerobics.

Except where stated, do 10 to 12 repetitions of each of the following, two or three times a week.

Best Exercises to Do

Partial Squats

Stand about 12 inches away from the front of a chair with your feet about hip-width apart and your toes forward. Bending at the hips, slowly lower yourself halfway down to the chair. Keep your abs tight, and check that your knees stay behind your toes.

Step-Ups

Using an aerobic step bench or a staircase, step up onto the step with your right foot. Tap your left foot on the top of the step, and then lower. As you step up, your knee should be directly over your ankle. Repeat with your left foot.

Side-Lying Leg Lifts

Wearing ankle weights above the knee, lie on your left side, legs straight and together, with your left arm supporting your head. Keeping your right foot flexed and your body straight, slowly lift your right leg to about shoulder height, then slowly lower. Repeat with your left leg.

Inner-Thigh Leg Lifts

Wearing ankle weights above the knee, lie on your left side, slightly back on your butt. Bend your right leg and place it behind your left leg with your right foot flat on the floor and your left leg straight. Support your head with your left arm. Slowly lift your left leg about 3 to 5 inches, then lower. Repeat with your right leg.

Calf Raises

Using a chair or wall for balance, stand with your feet about hip-width apart, toes straight ahead. Slowly lift your heels off the floor, rising up onto your toes. Hold, then slowly lower.

Straight-Leg Raises

Sit with your back against a wall, left leg straight and right leg bent with your foot flat on the floor. Slowly raise your left leg straight up about 12 inches off the floor. Hold, then slowly lower. Repeat with your right leg.

Short-Arc Knee Extensions

In the same starting position as the straight-leg raises, put a ball (about the size of a basketball) under your left knee so that your leg is bent. Slowly straighten your leg. Hold, then slowly lower. Repeat with your right leg.

Hamstring Stretch

Lie on your back with your left leg flat on the floor. Loop a towel or rope around your right foot and pull your leg as far as comfortable toward your chest, while keeping a slight bend at the knee. Keep your back pressed to the floor throughout the stretch. Hold for 10 to 30 seconds and then release. Repeat three or four times with each leg. Do this stretch five or six times a week.

Worst Exercises—Avoid These

A few of the following exercises can be done safely if you have chronic knee problems, but they're on this list because they're more likely to be done improperly. The exercises above are safer, while still giving you similar results.

• Full-arc knee extensions
• Lunges
• Deep squats
• Hurdler's stretches

Before You Run More, First Run Better

 By Jay Dicharry

     

    

Running Rewired author Jay Dicharry shares how your brain can be rewired to promote better running form and improved performance. 

There are three systems that run a program over and over with each stride you take. I cover them in my book Running Rewired. Each element in the system has specific inputs and outputs to modify the quality of your stride. This is what’s missing from our understanding of running. Runners have an unrelenting focus on volume. More miles per week obviously puts more mechanical load on your joints. It’s the body’s job to produce a controlled and efficient response, rising to the challenge and controlling your body. A poor movement program equates to poor body control. When the body becomes overwhelmed by the demands of running it sets us up for injury or leads to compromised performance. Specifically, it is how we deal with the mechanical demands of running that dictates how well we perform.

The two big questions are:

1. Is your movement safe? What type of movement skill and body awareness do you bring to running?
2. Is your movement efficient? Could you rewire the way you move to drive you forward with less effort, and less form breakdown during your runs?

An efficient movement program improves the quality of your stride for long-term joint health and efficiency. Just as we can adjust the quantity of our running volume, we can learn to improve the quality of our running volume. Your brain learns through movement and awareness to know when, how much, and how fast to drive your legs. You can improve your skills by better understanding the input your brain is receiving and rewiring your movement program to get your legs moving more safely and efficiently.

Dynamic plastic

What’s my favorite thing to eat? Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. You didn’t know that 5 seconds ago, but you do now. Do you know how you learned to swim? Do you know how the brain recovers after a stroke? The answers to these questions have one thing in common: neural plasticity. Your brain is capable of learning. Not just rote memorization, but actually learning how to do new things at any age! When you learn, your brain makes new connections from one cell to another. The more you practice, the more robust these connections become. It’s the old practice makes perfect thing. Your nerves are literally building skill by laying down connectivity from nerve to nerve.

The wires that connect your systems are dynamic. They adjust their signals depending on your needs. Running on asphalt, concrete, grass, and over trail irregularities present different inputs, and all require different outputs in terms of muscle action and timing. Changing pace requires modifications as well. Your nervous system makes all of the necessary adjustments behind the scenes. The same thing happens when you get a new pair of shoes—your body makes slight changes to account for the new environment your foot now sits on. All of this learning that your body does to account for these differences is evidence that it can also learn and adapt to run better. The Running Rewired program uses neural plasticity to train your body to run with more control for better durability and better performance.

Moving with precision and force

A lot of coaches will tell you that runners self-select their own efficient running form. Well, kind of. There’s optimal form, which we’ll call Plan A. And then there’s making the best of what you’ve got, or Plan B. Most runners figure out how to compensate for any shortcomings in their current make-up of mobility, stability, strength, and power. In other words, your brain’s ability to adapt is being hijacked by your body and its limitations. You refine and practice Plan B over years of purposeful practice. Plan B can certainly get the job done to log your miles. But I’d argue that Plan B is second rate.

It’s not my intention to come at you with guns a-blazing and tell you everything you know about running is wrong, but given the fact that your brain can be rewired and your running form can actually change, why not work on recovering your own personal Plan A? Movements that feel awkward today can become instinctual. Through deliberate practice, Plan A can also become instinctual. Settle for Plan B and you will leave performance on the table because Plan B stops short of harnessing your durability or capacity.

If you have problems or injuries that affect the way you run, it’s time to fix them. Take your aching back and painful knees and throw 35–50 miles a week at them, and running won’t help. Neither would soccer, basketball, or ice hockey. Placing a huge load on top of existing problems only makes things worse. Your injury cycles demand rest time that prevents consistent training. Break the cycle. You don’t need to be a freak of nature to be successful, but you do need to improve your movement quality.

There’s another issue I frequently see in runners that compromises movement. Many will tell me, “I can’t jump.” Here’s what this really means: “I can’t coordinate my body well enough to deliver a solid chunk of force down to the floor to blast me up and forward against gravity.” This is a big problem because this is exactly what running demands of us. In fact, research shows that people who drive more force down to the ground in a shorter period of time run faster. Period. Every runner, at every level, can train and improve this skill.

We are going to open up the black box of running and establish a system for making you a better runner. Your body drives your running form. Build a better body and you will improve your running form. By focusing on the specific skills that improve running, you can move with precision and strengthen your spring. To move with precision you need enough mobility to move unencumbered and enough stability to control the path your body takes over each mile. Building the skills of mobility and stability will reduce your “stress per stride” and ensure your body symmetry is dialed. Moving better makes you more durable as a runner, which allows your training to be more consistent. A stronger spring leads to better performance because your ability to deliver more oomph down to the ground makes for a faster stride.

Maybe You Just Need a Bigger Bike!

Ride Your Gut Off with These 3 Training Tips

Here’s how to use your bike to shed that dangerous spare tire

By selene yeager

     

Belly fat is bad news. While researchers debate the real health risks of a higher body mass index (BMI) or carrying a few extra pounds, everyone agrees that wearing too much weight around your waist is largely detrimental to your health. 

Research shows that a waistline over 40 inches for men and 35 inches for women puts you at risk for heart disease even if you’re not technically overweight and otherwise in good health. Belly fat has also been linked to high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar and diabetes. Again, bad news.

The good news is that you already own the best tool for shedding that bad-news belly fat: your bike. The key is performing a variety of workouts that build your fat-burning engine, rev your metabolism and the production of fat-burning hormones, suppress your appetite, and help you burn more fat and calories all day long. Yep, your bike can do all that. Here’s how. (Read Bike Your Butt Off! for a fully guided weight-loss plan for cyclists.)

     Go hard. Do interval training once or twice a week (no need for more; stick to one day if you race or go hard on weekends). Numerous studies have found that high-intensity training significantly reduces total abdominal fat, including dangerous visceral (belly) fat more effectively than lower-intensity exercise. There are endless ways to do interval training. One simple example:

•Warm up: 10 to 15 minutes
•Pick up your effort so you’re working hard (a nine on a One-to-10 scale; you’re breathing hard, but not gasping) for 30 seconds to one minute. 
•Go easy for one minute.
•Repeat a total of five times.
•Cool down for two to three minutes.

Research shows your body also unleashes human growth hormone, which helps you burn fat and maintain muscle, after just 10 to 30 seconds of high-intensity exercise. High-intensity exercise also appears to help curb your appetite and trigger hormones that regulate feelings of hunger and fullness better than lower-intensity exercise, so you’re less likely to overeat. 

Keep it controlled and comfortable. Yes. We just told you to go hard to burn off unwanted belly fat—but don’t overdo it. Going hard all the time stresses your body and leaves you chronically inflamed, which can backfire by contributing to belly-fat storage. Cap the intensity to a couple times a week and take the rest of your weekly rides at a controlled, comfortable pace. “Most recreational cyclists are doing too much high intensity training and they’re not getting leaner or faster,” says Iñigo San Millán, PhD, the director of the Exercise Physiology and Human Performance Lab at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. “Many of your rides should be in Zone 2,” he says. That’s an intensity where you can talk the whole time—about a five to six on that One-to-10 scale. “This is usually the intensity that elicits the highest fat oxidation for energy purposes,” says San Millán. These rides are not only good for burning fat, but also for building your slow-twitch, endurance muscle fibers; increasing capillary development; improving your ability to use lactate for energy; and making you a better fat-burner all the way around.

Aim for about 80/20. A number of coaches prescribe what is known as the “80/20 rule,” also called polarized training, for balancing training intensity. It’s definitely worth a try for burning off belly fat as well as for getting fitter and faster. The goal is to spend 80 percent of riding time at low intensity and 20 percent at moderate to hard intensity. That way, when it’s time to go hard, you have the freshness and energy reserves to go hard enough to maximize those interval efforts.

Hitting both intensities actually improves your abilities all around: Your slow-twitch muscle fibers do the work of recycling the lactate your high-intensity, fast-twitch fibers produce. so when you spend time building them, the payoff is being able to work harder at high intensity—which in turn stimulates more fat burning. Research shows this intensity combo also makes you faster. In a 2013 study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, researchers found that when cyclists performed six weeks of 80/20-style training, they more than doubled their power and performance gains, such as lactate threshold, compared to when they spent more time in moderate training zones.

Late Moto Fade...Conditioning or Arm Pump?

The other day I was at the track listening to a couple of young guys explain to each other why they keep fading back in the last few laps. They were both using the classic moto excuse, the one we have all used at least once...ARM PUMP! Guys have been trying to eliminate arm pump for years with everything from drugs to the surgeon's knife. There is a bertter way, take a look at the 4Arm Strong device.

Arm pump is not only an ailment that causes poor performance, it is also extremely dangerous in an already risky sport/activity. Many motocross/motorcycle racers spend thousands of dollars on a motorcycle, kit, boots, helmet, etc. only to sit on the side of the track waiting for their forearms to loosen up. 

Supercross Fitness!

What Supercross Racers Can Teach You About Your Own Fitness

"I don't think anyone realizes the exertion these guys manage during a race."

By John Scott Lewinski October 26, 2017

AMA Supercross

When you're racing a motorcycle, your heart beats as fast as humanly possible. Whether you're hopping along the straightaways or jumping a bike 20 feet in the air, you need to stay focused and ward off the distractions of a roaring crowd and constant fireworks.

At the Monster Energy AMA Supercross in Las Vegas, rider Marvin Musquin overcame all of those challenges and more to take home $1 million — the second rider ever to claim a seven-figure check from the competition. This year's competition was also unique in another respect: for the first time, every racer on the dirt wore heart monitors that not only recorded their exertion levels throughout the race for trainer analysis, but also broadcasted that same real-time data to the stadium’s screens.

Photograph courtesy of AMA Supercross

During the competition in Las Vegas, riders wrestled 200+ pound bikes around banked turns and over 20-foot jumps, their hearts spiking above the 190 BPM mark and staying there for 15 laps. The heart rate displays showed this spike in real time, providing a fun gimmick to bring fans closer to their favorite riders.

The race organizers hoped the heart monitors would help fans understand how hard the racers work. But the data also served another purpose: to help trainers and medical professionals understand heart function and recovery during any athletic competition.

The tracking tech was created by LITPro, a Temecula, Calif.-based developer of race-tracking software. LITPro President Michael Ford says LITPro needed to upgrade its existing technology before its new heart monitors could work. Using a form of GPS, LITPro had to track the racers' rapidly beating hearts, turn to turn and jump to jump.

“We had to reinvent GPS as it currently only offers a data point every second," Ford explained. "Our HD GPS now reports 20 times per second. That allows us to add other metrics such as acceleration and G-force to our heart rate monitoring.”

Examining heart rate and recovery offers tremendous insight into how efficiently the human body works. Musquin, for instance, utilizes LITPro’s heart rate monitoring technology for races, practices and time trials, but he also has the unit attached while exercising with fitness expert Aldon Baker.

“We’re learning that the primary signs of fitness are heart rate and recovery,” Baker told Men's Health. "The biggest challenge I face is trying to find ways to train Supercross athletes up to the same heart rates as when they race. These guys have been racing since they were five years old, so they’re not afraid out there during a race. But their heart rates are still higher at race time than at any other time. That’s all adrenaline — all competition.”

To push his riders’ fitness levels as close to race conditions as he can, Baker has them switch between practice riding to intense cardio and strength training days. Regardless, the athletes do some cardio every day unless they are injured.

 

Ford and Baker foresee all of this training and racing data finding its way into the mainstream fitness realm. After collecting and analyzing all of the heart rate data, Ford and LitPRO want to take their findings to other circuits and sports beyond motor-racing to aid a wider swath of athletes in training.

Still, there's something exceptional about Supercross.

“I don’t think anyone realizes the exertion these guys manage during a race,” Ford said. “Football players get a break after every play. Basketball players stop for fouls. Our racers have to manage that bike with the throttle wide open, against G-forces and through all the impacts. That’s why this is the perfect sport to drive this research.”