Anyone who has ever been involved in sports will always tell you that they experience weakness in the knees the more that they put into their workouts. Even though the rest of your legs and your body are keen to keep going, the knees usually let you down every single time. If you currently take part in any sport that you need to change direction quickly regularly, the knees tend to weaken over time if you don’t put things in place to provide them with strength. There are a number of different activities that will undermine your knees because they put far too much stress on them, so one of the first things you should do is try to avoid these activities in the first place.
Running down hills, for example, or on hard surfaces will weaken your knees, and you may have to seek physiotherapy for knee pain. You should also pay particular attention to the kind of shoes you wear every day because if you are on your feet for long periods, these types of footwear will not provide you with the support you need. If you are currently experiencing knee pain and would like some essential tips to help you take care of your knees and make them stronger, then the following should help you.
- Watch what you eat - What you put in your mouth can influence the inflammation you receive in your joints, particularly the knees. This is why you need to be looking for anti-inflammatory foods so that you can add them to your diet on a daily basis. Many different foods have anti-inflammatory properties, and some examples are broccoli, tuna, olive oil, and of course, ginger and garlic. If you incorporate these into your diet, this should help to combat some of the inflammation.
- Always warm up before exercise - Many people just start their exercise routine, injuring themselves, particularly their knees. Try to do light exercises like walking on the spot or using your elliptical machine to warm the body up so that it has more flexibility. This helps you to prevent injury to your knees in the first place.
- Perform specific exercises - Some excellent exercises will help to strengthen your knees, and two of them are leg lifts and standing hamstring curls which can be performed even when on vacation. If you are still getting familiar with how to do these, just Google each of them, and you will get a good explanation of how it is done.
You should be doing everything you can to avoid knee injuries in the first place, and one way to do this is to have regular visits to your physiotherapist anyway. He or she can give you proper instructions so that your knees stay strong and you don’t experience any knee injuries.