As mentioned in the previous post. Inactivity and lack of use can worsen the health of the knee joint.

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Fortunately there a lot of options for people with Knee OA to maintain the health of their knees and reduce their pain.  Exercise for people with Knee OA has a lot of benefits. Exercises can help:

• Build the muscle strength around your knee

• Reduce low grade inflammation

• Maintain healthy synovial fluid to bring nutrients to joint

• Improve you function with everyday activities

• Improve your confidence

• Build your capacity so you can do more

 

Research tends to favour resistance exercises for knee OA to help people improve their knee function and reduce their knee pain. Examples of resistance exercise are weights, resistance bands or reformer Pilates.  

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Is it safe to exercise with pain?

It is understandable when you already have knee pain that you could be a bit hesitant to start doing exercise that puts further load onto your knees. You can be reassured that all exercises is safe, and you cannot do any damage to your knees. But for some people, particularly when starting out, it might increase your knee pain during or for a short period afterwards.  

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My advice when beginning if you are getting pain with any exercise is:

• If it’s tolerable (generally less than a 3-4/10 pain) then carry on.

• However if you have done the exercise and your pain is much worse than usual at night or the next day, then next time try and do an easier exercise or back the resistance off a little bit.

• If the current exercise is not tolerable, again, drop back to an easier version or reduce the resistance.

 

Often there can be a little bit of trial and error to find out how much exercise is right for you to start with.

Over the coming weeks as you continue to do your program try and gradually increase the resistance, the number of repetitions or move to a more challenging exercise. This will help you build the capacity of your knee.

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How many and how often?

Choose about 3 exercises that work your legs to start with.  Let’s say a squat, a bridge and a calf raise.

Then, choose a set and rep range you are comfortable with. For each exercise start between 3-4 sets of 8-12 repetitions. Ideally it should feel like you’re doing some work without being too painful.

To start with you only need to do the exercises 2-3 times per week with a day or two in-between each session.

 

Can I avoid Surgery for Knee OA?

Most people find if they can gradually build up their exercise capacity around their knee, they are able to manage their knee pain. As mentioned in the previous post, you may still get some painful days but remember that often flare ups come and go, and even if it’s sore now your pain will likely settle.   If you are managing your knee pain and flare ups and are able to engage in all your valued activities, there is no reason why you would need surgery.