Knee Rehab

My cousin, who has been weight training for a few years, is going in for knee surgery this week. She is having her medial meniscus in her right knee repaired. She has had knee surgeries in the past on both knees(FOUR actually, and she is 28) most notably on her ACL’s in each knee. Despite her problems, she has been able to compete in sports, as well as weight train regularly. My question is: what would be some worthwhile exercises for her to do in order to rehab her knee(s)? I know the doctors have been giving her certain exercises, but they seem pretty useless. Any suggestions, or at least ideas of where she could find some good info on rehab exercises?

I need to bump this one, since i’m going in this week to have a medial meniscus repaired (a portion removed, more specifically) and haven’t been overly impressed with the quality of rehabilitation advice i’ve been getting so far. I know that there are some m-mers out there, so what do you say?

Check out Dank’s review of the hip squat belt in the archives. Pavel also mentioned that one-legged squats are used for knee rehab in a recent issue of MM. HTH.

I cant realy speak for you guys because my knee surgey was to remove cartillage not major repair. I ran into the same thing though, the physical therapist gave me exercises that wer pretty much useless. They were for people who had serious damage or who were out of shape to begin with, not an athlete. I went to 2 sessions and decided to rehab it myself. I just started with the exercise bike and then as movement returned went to squats other exercises. The key is to take it slow and not rush it, as you might re-injure it. If you have any d

Damn, hit the wrong button. What i wanted to say was that i you have any pain or discomfort you are doing to much. Its been about 1 1/2 since he surgery a last week I maxxed at 385 in the squat. Just get back to it but be patient and you wil be back to normal.

Having been through 2 ACL reconstructions and having 25% removal of my lateral meniscus(to tell you the truth I can’t remember if it was the lateral or medial, so lets just say it was the lateral)…This was by far the easiest surgery and rehab that I had to deal with. Sure, PT’s usually give you crappy exercises that don’t really seem to help, but they will help in the short term. If she is anything like me, she probably has major atrophy in her VMO(aka the teardrop in the quad), so the best way to start w/building that up is good old straight leg raises. I know it sounds like a pussy exercise, but have her get ankle weights that she is comfortable with(in terms of poundage) and and do them til the cows come home. She’s probably getting electrical stimulus of some kind on the quad region, so the SLRs will aid in helping redevelop the quad. I find that the most challenging way to do these is to sit on the floor as if you were going to do a “sit and reach” test for you flexibility, and place your back against a wall. This seems to be the hardest way to do the SLRs IMO. Also, get a swiss ball and do wall squats w/the ball behind the back…TIP: to make it harder, get some sort of ball w/a give to it, like a kickball(ya know what i’m talking about, those red balls we used when we were kids) and have her put it between her knees. Doing squats w/the added resistance of squeezing the ball between the kness makes it harder. Also, once her range of motion is back on track the leg press may be helpful. Doing them single legged or both at the same time, higher rep and lower weight will get her back to par. Gradually add things like walking lunges, even w/o weight on her back it will still be beneficial…
SORRY, there are a lot more things I’d like to say but I am at work right now and I’m gonna get fired if I keep posting right now…I’ll add more later.