Strengthen your lower body through knees

Knee is the largest and most complicated joint in the body comprising cartilage, tendons, ligaments, blood vessels and three bones, fibula and tibia ( lower leg), and femur ( thigh). Your knee consists of two separate joints.

The kneecap has a unique type of bone called the sesamoid bone, aka ‘ Patella’. All knees are different. It has been said that they may be as unique as fingerprints.

The knee relies on 12 muscles at least to perform its function and in order to work perfectly, it relies on an absolute balance between hip and ankle support. Every pound of excess weight exerts about 4 pounds of extra pressure on the knees.

Arthritis is one of the most common diseases found in the knee and occurs when the surfaces of the bone that make up the knee become rough due to wear and tear, inflammation.

If you’re not feeling your knee at its best then start with strengthening exercises. It is very important to understand the fact that when you are strengthening the muscles around the knee, you should strengthen the muscles around the hips and ankles too for better results.

Do focus on the core muscles training when you do strengthening for your knees.

It's very important to do warm up in the form of cycling or cross- trainer for at least 15- 30 minutes before training the muscles. Once you are done with strength training, don't forget to cool down. Do the cool down in the form of stretching or foam rolling. If you plan to stretch the muscles then do it for 1520 sec per muscle and if you are deciding to formroll the muscles, then either roll for 1- 2 minutes per muscle or 10- 15 roll per muscle. I prefer both, starting from foam- rolling followed by stretching of the muscles. Before you start doing training, get your knee assessed properly by your doctor or physical therapist. The writer is senior physiotherapist, AktivHealth