Lately I’ve been starting to worry about my knees during my leg exercises. Specifically leg extensions and leg press. Does anyone have tips about preworkout stretches, supplements etc that they use to keep their knees safe?
I was never big in sports so I don’t have any pre existing injuries but I don’t want to be one of those guys with double braces on in a few years. I’ve thought about just doing lower weights higher reps but I’m really wanting to start bulking now and I’m worried about the inevitable increases in weight. It’s always the side of my knees that start feeling goofy on high weights.
Don’t do leg extension or leg press. There are excellent articles here at T-Nation that explain why those put unnecessary force upon the knees.
Learn to squat correctly. This helped me overcome knee injuries in my late teens. Deadlifts are great too for strengthening the hamstrings, especially if you are a quad-dominant person like I am.
I don’t own it, and can’t vouch for it, but it’s probably a start.
For me, I don’t do leg extensions and I make sure I squat with my hips more than my legs. So long as form is correct (weight on heels and depth is at least parallel) most of the tension is on the hips, which can handle it, saving the knees.
Fish oil, lots of it =) Helps lubricate joints along with hundreds of other benefits. Although this wont strengthen your knee’s its still a preventative.
Have proper form, olympic weightlifters squat very narrow all the time for many years with very heavy weight year round and they are not crippled. Though if you want to minimize stress on the knees, use a wider stance in the squats putting most of the focus on the hips and gluts. Get some knee sleeves also they are like 20 bucks or something from elitfts.com.
Learn to squat with proper form-it will give you the best results and put less stress on knees- Squat Rx #1 - YouTube watch all of these.
Those videos will give you great stretches for the knees also, you don’t have to ditch the leg press and leg extension but they are no where near as effective as a proper squat.
Do some barbell/dumbell single leg work at least 1x per week and you will be up to snuff. I will drop squats for a brief period to work on single leg strength and my #'s usually stay the same or go up a bit and I feel more stable out of the hole(oly squat front and back).
In addition, learn to foam roll and use dynamic stretches before your workout and activated isolated stretching for postworkout(see core performance book or look it up online). These techniques helped me get loose faster than conventional static stretching by itself.
Other than that, drink lots of water and eat a clean diet thats low in omega 6s and higher in omega 3s to promote an anti-inflammatory effect plus healing.
This is all great advice and I really appreciate it. I just finished up a big fat cutting and hat to cut all oils out of my diet, but now that I’m done I’m back on Flameout so I’m sure that will help.
Wait – you cut out all oils and lots of fats from your diet? Eating fat does not make you fat, nor does it keep you from “holding on to” fat. You should read some nutrition articles here on this site, you can learn a lot in a short period of time.