Hello everyone, I am Teacher Mao’s fitness! Share professional fitness knowledge!
Introduction:
● Squats are the king of lower body training, a compound movement of multiple joints and multiple muscle groups, and an indispensable exercise for training gluteal muscles and thigh muscles.
● As age grows, many of our friends begin to experience knee pain, especially after
● So what movements can train the hip and leg muscles and stabilize the knee joints?
The following Teacher Cat Fitness shares this article from two aspects. I hope it will be helpful to middle-aged friends (suitable for men and women), strengthening the quadriceps, hamstrings, and gluteal muscles that affect the stability of the knee joint, making the knee joint more stable, reducing and relieving pain.
1. The causes of knee pain when people reach middle age:
① Infrequent movement of the knee (such as sitting for a long time), the synovial fluid in the knee joint is reduced, and When flexing the knee, patella and femur friction cause pain . The normal phenomenon is that the knee often makes a "cucking" ( bounces ).
◉ relief method: Before using daily activities or fitness exercises that require lower body strength (such as running, mountaineering, etc.), you must first do some knee extension and flexion training to make the knee warm first and increase joint slip fluid.
② The muscles around the knee joint are tense, causing the knee joint flexion range of motion (ROM) to bend, so when the knee is flexed, the quadriceps tendon or patellar tendon is painful (tenitis).
Sit as follows: sit on a stool or on the floor, straighten your legs, and press the upper and lower part of the kneecap shown in the picture above with your hands. If the sting above means the quadriceps tendon; if the sting below means the patellar tendon.
◉ Relief method: The main reasons for tendinitis are poor flexibility of the quadriceps and hamstrings, insufficient centrifugal strength of the quadriceps and weak gluteus muscles, causing the knee to bear most of the weight, so the "self-fascia relaxation method" and quadriceps, gluteus and hamstring strength training are used to strengthen muscle mass and strength.
- Self-fascial dissolution refers to the use of foam roller and fascial ball (or tennis ball) to relax the target muscle, "loosen" the traumatic muscle tissue and "break" the fascial adhesions (or challenge point or pain point) in accumulated damage.
Foam quadriceps loosening
Foam hamstring loosening
Foam thigh thigh
- Quadriceps, gluteal muscles, and hamstring strength training. The movements mainly use training movements dominated by hip with less participation in the knee joint, rather than using knee joint-dominated training movements such as "squats, squats, etc.", which is also the key content of this article.
2. 4 movements to train the hip and leg muscles and stabilize the knee joints.
Action 1: Squat against the wall
Squat against the wall This action is very simple. It can be said that as long as there is a wall , we can do this exercise. This exercise can help us strengthen the quadriceps in front of the knee joint , and the quadriceps have a very good effect on strengthening the stability of the knee joint , so many fitness coaches or doctors recommend that patients with joint pain squat against the wall squat for exercise.
wall squat is an isometric/static movement, which can still be considered a composite movement because it requires a lot of joints and muscles to work together. You can exercise the entire lower body of muscle groups: hip muscle groups, hamstrings and quadriceps.
How to do squat against the wall:
- Open your feet shoulder-width, with your toes facing forward, and adjust the distance between your feet and the wall (when squatting down, you can make your thighs parallel to the ground and the distance between your thighs and the upper body perpendicular).
- upper body is straight against the wall, with your hands straight forward (you can also hold it in front of your chest), your back and head are close to the wall, tighten the core, and keep your pelvis neutral.
- Bend your hips and knees and squat until your thighs are parallel to the ground, and your calves are perpendicular to the ground. Keep your knees facing your toes when squatting and do not buckle inward.
- is still for more than 30 seconds, gradually increasing the rest time.
- Pay attention to maintaining normal breathing. And another important thing to remember is that when you feel tired, you should push yourself or slide it onto the wall to get it back to the standing position. Don't fall to the ground. Otherwise it may cause a lot of damage to your knees, especially when your muscles, tendons and ligaments are tired.
- can also increase the difficulty:
Action 2: Box squat
Box squat reduces the range of movement of knee bending, and is dominated by the hip joint. After sitting down, the stool behind supports it, so completely releases the pressure on the knees when squatting , which allows you to focus more on pushing your hips backwards (glute muscles exert force) when squatting, and exerting force at the same time when squatting. Target muscle groups: quadriceps, glutes, .
How to do box squats:
- can use barbells, dumbbells or self-weight, and a stool that is the same height (or a little higher) as your knees.
- feet open shoulder-width (or a little wider) and stand in front of the stool.
- The toes are facing forward, the knees are facing toes (not buckle when squatting), and the core is tight, this is the starting position.
- inhale, push your hips backwards, flex your hips and knees , sit back and lower until you are completely on the stool (at this time you will not feel the pressure on your knees).
- The quadriceps and gluteal muscles both exert force to squat until the starting position. Be careful to squeeze the gluteal muscles but do not overstretch the waist and do not lock the knees.
Action 3: hip thrust (hip rush)
hip thrust to activate the entire hip area without any impact on the knee. The hip muscles are two fragile and prone to damage in the body: knee and lower back muscle group , enhance gluteal muscle strength, reduce compensation for knee and lower back in daily life or exercise and fitness, reduces lumbar muscle strain and knee joint damage . And hip thrust is a hip-dominated training and is very friendly to the knee joint.
Barbell hip push:
Glute maximus isolated training: Glute maximus (also known as hip push), it can help you shape a full glute maximus. The movement of stretching the end of the hip during hip pushing is very stimulating to the muscles, which can strengthen the locking of the end of the hip stretching, avoid the error of raising the waist compensation, and increase training efficiency and safety.
How to do barbell butt push:
- sit on the floor, with your back against a stable support plane (the height of the plane should be slightly lower than the lower corner of the scapula when the human body sits on the ground at the end of the body).
- Both feet are open, the distance between the heels is hip-width, and the toes are slightly abducted.
- adjusts the position of the foot so that the calf can be perpendicular to the ground when the hip joint is stretched upward.
- Place the center of gravity on the heel, and slowly lower the hip to the ground, stretch the hip joint upward until the hip joint is fully extended, but do not overstretch the lumbar spine (the hip push is the hip rather than the waist, so it is not advisable to push the hip to the end to excessive thoracic and lumbar spine stretching at the end).
- The strong contraction of the gluteus maximus at the end of the hip extension (highest point) should be combined with the slight back tilt of the pelvis and the contraction of the rectus abdominis to increase muscle stimulation.
- then slowly lower the hips under the control of the gluteus muscles to approach the ground, but not touching the floor.
- repeat.
Notes on perfect hip thrust:
- Heel force will transfer muscle activation from the quadriceps to the gluteus and hamstrings, keeping the feet straight or lifting the toes off the ground through dorsiflexion of the ankle and maintaining the posture throughout the process.
- When lifting your hips, keep your calf perpendicular to the gluteus muscles that can maximize activation and find the appropriate foot distance so that when at the top of the hip thrust, the calf is vertical to the ground, rather than tilting forward or backward.
- Do not buckle the knees when lifting your hips, as it can increase the activation of the gluteus muscles and be healthier for the knee joints.
- Full hip stretch is where the gluteus muscles reach the highest activation level, failing to reach this range of motion will result in lower gluteus tone, so make sure to use the hips to push the hips as high as possible during each repetitive hip thrust, but do not overstretch the waist spine.
- The forward line of sight encourages backward pelvic tilt and prevents forward pelvic tilt and overextend the lumbar spine while transferring tension to the gluteus muscles, so keep the forward gaze and keep the neck bent forward during movement.
- Breathing before lifting your hips can support the core, which can increase spinal stability, prevent overstretching of the spine, and have better performance, so at the bottom of the exercise, take a deep breath, and then tighten the abdominal muscles.
Action 4: Straight-leg deadlift (dumbbell or barbell)
Straight-leg deadlift is a training movement for multiple joints and multiple muscle groups in the lower body with very little knee participation. It is fully trained through hip movements. This movement will help " provides stability to the knee joint by enhancing the strength of the hips ". Target muscle group: gluteus muscle, hamstring muscle, lower back muscle group .
Barbell straight leg deadlift:
How to do barbell straight leg deadlift:
- Hold the barbell with both hands and pull the barbell from the rack, step backwards, so that the barbell is placed in front of the thigh.
- Stand shoulder-width apart with your feet shoulder-width, with your toes facing forward, your knees facing toes and slightly bent.
- Shrubs sink and retract, pushing your chest slightly outward. This is the starting position.
- inhale, keep slightly bent the knee to fix the angle, without changing the angle of the knee, push the hip back, bend forward, and let the barbell descend along the front side of the leg until half of the shin. (It is emphasized that the hip joint movement is not the knee joint movement.)
- exhale, push the hip forward, stretch the knees and hips to return to the starting position and squeeze the gluteus muscles.
- can also be used for straight leg deadlifts using dumbbells or kettlebells:
Conclusion: Before any leg and hip training, the knees must be warmed up to increase joint synovial fluid in the knees, and the intramuscular soft tissue around the knees; static stretching must be performed and foam relaxation of the quadriceps, gluteus muscles, hamstrings and calfs must be relaxed to increase flexibility.
I am Teacher Cat to exercise, and share fitness knowledge in easy-to-understand language! It is not easy to write. If you agree with my point of view, please help me follow or like it. If you or your family and friends also have troubles with knee joints and want to help you strengthen joints and assist in treating joint problems through training, please forward this article to them who need it. Thank you!
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