Kness Injuries and condition

[Slayer]

Can anyone help me out.
I have been reading a lot about knee injuires. but they don't have much about preventing them. Besides saying, stop doing something.
Does anyone know how to strengthen the knees and other joints in the body?

The Slayer

" I have never let my schooling interfere with my education"
- Mark Twain

[IronFist]

So you're worried about preventing knee injuries, right?

Here are some tips :)

When doing things like squats, make sure the knees follow the direction of the toes. If your toes are pointed out, your knees better be going out when you squat. If your toes are pointed directly ahead, your knees better to straight ahead when you squat down.

I've heard that most injuries occur not with near-maximal weights, but with weights 70-80% of 1RM when people do too many reps. For example, in bodybuilding, someone may do 12 reps of squats to failure... by the time you hit the 11th or 12th rep, your stabilizer muscles are fatigued as well, and you may lose control of the weight. On the other hand, using higher weights 90-95% of 1RM, or in any situation where you are NOT squatting to failure or near failure, your muscles never become too fatigued, and thus the chanve of losing control of the weight is less. ****, Pavel explained this a lot better than I just did.

If you're doing something like leg extensions on a machine, don't turn your knees inside or outside thinking that it will work the "inside" or "outside" of your thighs. This is bad advice given by incompetent personal trainers. It causes your knee to extend at an unnatural angle, and can over time cause bad things. Again, this is a "knees follow the toes" rule.

Try your best not to get kicked in the knees.

Hope these help,

Iron

[IronFist]

Woohoo! I just used bullets in a post! •••


Iron

[Robinf]

Iron,

• You are a man of many talents :D

I think people overlook weight training in order to "strengthen the knees". If any joint is giving someone a problem, it could be because the muscles aren't as strong as they need to be in order to work properly in stabalizing or supporting the joint. Too many people use the joint like a muscle instead of using it as it really is--a hinge.

Robin

Surrender yourself to nature and be all that you are.

[IronFist]

Make sure that, unless you are doing partials, you lock each movement out. Don't like slam it and hurt your joints, but do extend the joint all the way (unless it causes you pain). The bones and joints need to become used to bearing weight. Russian sometimes do training that only invovles holding a weight up with locked joints and no reps (I think). What I'm saying is, don't force your knees to go backwards, but DO straighten your legs out ALL the way after each squat. This will help your knees become accustomed to bearing weight.

Remember to build the weights up gradually.

The above advice was taken from Pavel, again. He has some books out on joints or flexibility or something. Perhaps you should check them out. I think he just published a new book called "Super Joints" but I don't know if it's a stretching book or a joint exercising book.

Iron

[PHILBERT]

it said that bulding up the quadriceps will greatly decrease your chances of knee injuries. Here is the article (found on page 50 at the bottom of the November 2001 issue):

Tearing the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is a common hazard among those of us who enjoy skiing, softball, tennis or any sport that requires cutting and pivoting. For years, doctors thought ACL injuries had something to do with weakness in the joints and ligaments. New evidence from a researcher at Harvard University, however, doesn't support the notion.

Weak quadriceps muscles are more often to blame, says Dr. M. Bodor, who recently conducted a comprehensive review of the subject and presents his findings in the July edition of the Journal of Orthopedic Research. "Strong quadriceps are important for ACL injury prevention and rehabilitation, and preservation of quadriceps strength is an important goal."

Bottom line? Keep squatting. As the proceeding study shows, the exercise is easy on the ACL and hard on the quads.

Thought I'd let you have the entire article. I hope it helps.

PHILBERT

[Shaolin36]

A couple of things-

Ironfist
I have always read and been told that completely straightening any of you joints while lifting is a no-no for 2 reasons.
The first reason is that this will take tension off the muscle trying to be worked which will kiss your intensity goodbye- Its like taking a rest between each rep and the main reason is the it does cause extreme joint damge. I have always read and been told that you want to go right before lock out to keep the tension on the muscle and not the joint.

Slayer,
I think someone mentioned this but doing partial frat boy squats with 50-70% max weight is good for building the knees up. All this does is strengthen/tighten up the tendons and ligaments, hence you have stronger knees.

Keeping the other points in like which way your toes are pointed and such-
Shaolin36

[IronFist]

Shaolin 36 said:

have always read and been told that completely straightening any of you joints while lifting is a no-no for 2 reasons.

Like I said, it is going to be contradictory to everything you've heard ;)


The first reason is that this will take tension off the muscle trying to be worked which will kiss your intensity goodbye-


The first thing I said was "unless you are doing partials."

Its like taking a rest between each rep

Unless you're doing specific joint locked training, it's more like taking a .5-1.0 second rest between each rep. Unless you're doing partials, it's hardly enough to be considered "Kissing your intensity goodbye."

and the main reason is the it does cause extreme joint damge. I have always read and been told that you want to go right before lock out to keep the tension on the muscle and not the joint.

It's like, when you lock your knees out, don't be actively flexing your quads (like you're trying to make your shin go ****her than it's supposed to), just lock it out and hold it there, don't lock it out and keep pressing. Did that make sense? Don't be straining to lock it out. Once the joint is straight, it's fine.

I wonder how people with weird knees that can bend like 5 degrees in the wrong direction would deal with locking out. Hey guys with weird knees, this advice doesn't apply to you :)

Make sense? I'm not saying I'm 100% right, I'm just defending my point :)

Iron

[Robinf]

Iron,

It makes sense to me. That's how I work out. You straighten the joint, but don't jar it to a close, just go to straight--there's still tension on the muscle, hold it there for a second then go down slowly.

This sort of sounds like the debate of how to best do crunches and/or situps.

Robin

Surrender yourself to nature and be all that you are.