Sebastian Brosche · 15 min · 1,643 words
Previously titled: Video 5 - Rehab for Anterior Knee Pain
Okay, so welcome to day five. This is the last of our series. For this set of exercises, you're gonna need a stick. This is a special massage stick, but you don't need that.
You can do it with just an ordinary piece of dowel, or a rolling pin works just fine. We're also gonna need a weight. I've got a kettlebell there, but just an ordinary weights plate, or even a reusable shopping bag, some bag with bottles of water in it will be just fine. So, what I can do here is I'm gonna just start by doing a little bit of work into my quad muscles.
Okay, and then what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna straighten my leg, and I'm just gonna pin the muscle with the stick, and then just bend the knee. I'm gonna do the same thing again. I can find the tender points. I'm gonna find the bits of the muscle that are a little bit sensitive, and just work into those.
Straighten the leg, pin, and stretch. Straighten the leg, pin, and stretch. I can work all different angles here. And so, if you don't have a stick handy, you can also go back to your lacrosse ball, and again, just find those points in the muscle, put a bit of pressure down.
And then, just work into that. And then, just find the tender points. And then, just work into that. And then, just find the tender points.
And then, just find the tender points. And then, just find the tender points. And then, just find the tender points. And that's that.
So there's a variety of different tools you can use for this one. I'm gonna work down the other leg. And again, don't forget to find the points that are a little bit more tender and just hang out there for a little bit so you can focus on those specifically. So once we've done that, we're going to leave the chair there because we can use that.
So you can either use an ordinary chair, you can use a bench, you can use a box, you can go down to a step if you're feeling confident with this one. So we're going to do a one-legged squat, but we're only going to concentrate on going down. So I'm just going to stand on one leg, I'm going to slowly lower myself down to the chair and I'm going to use two legs to stand back up again. I'm going to alternate legs here.
Stand back up. So I want to concentrate on lowering myself down as slowly as I can, but knowing that I've got the chair behind me so I don't have to worry about holding my balance at the bottom. And then as I get more confident and as my knees get better, I can gradually lower the thing that I'm lowering myself down to. So I'm going to do a one-legged squat.
If this is feeling pretty easy and you want to have a go at going down and standing back up on the same leg, that's fine. But again, be guided by how your body feels and how much pain you're getting. So as with any of these eccentric, they can sometimes flare a problem up if it's still in the sensitive stage. So be aware of that.
And it's always good to try a few reps first and see how you get on. And then if everything feels good, you can always do a little bit more next time. And do one more on each leg. Okay, we'll put the bench to one side for a minute.
And we're going to move on to a loaded hip hinge or a Romanian deadlift, some people call it. So I've got my weight here. This is 12 kilos. It could just as well be a shopping bag with some bottles of water in it.
So I'm going to put this on my hip hinge. I'm going to put this on my hip hinge. I'm going to put this on my hip hinge. It could just as well be a shopping bag with some bottles of water in it.
I'm not too fussy about what it is at this point. But what I want to do, I'm letting my arms hang and I'm going to keep my back really straight and just slowly let the weight come down and then back up again. So as soon as I get to the point where I feel a pull on my hamstrings, I'm just going to come straight back up. Again, if you can get a training partner or someone to watch you, just make sure you're keeping your back straight.
That's a really good idea the first few times you try this because it's very easy to think you are when actually you're not. But in any case, I would suggest starting out with a relatively light weight while you get the hang of the technique. So I'm keeping the knees straight, but they're soft. I'm not locking them out.
Again, if you feel like you're starting to bend your back, you're having trouble keeping good form, then either drop the weight down a bit or do fewer reps. So with all of these things, the most important thing is getting the technique really good. We're going to go back to the one leg sitting squats. So I'm going to be finding this really easy.
You want to make it harder. You can add a weight in front of you here. You can make the box lower and you can even take the box out altogether and turn it into a pistol squat. But I would say that's probably a bit advanced for a rehab plan.
And we're going to go back to our Romanian deadlift. Again, soft knees, but still straight, hinging at the hip, down and back up. I'll make sure I'm looking forward and I've got my shoulders pulled back. We're just going to finish off with a couple of stretches here.
So I'm going to start with an easy adductor stretch. Take my legs out to a nice comfortable width. I'm not going to force them as far as I can because what I want to make sure of is that I can keep my back nice and straight. I don't want to be rounded.
So I don't want to take my head towards the floor. I want to try and pull my chest forwards. I'm going to do a couple of stretches here. I'm going to start with a chest forward.
I should feel a nice stretch in these muscles here. If I'm feeling it right into the hip joint itself, if it's pinching at the front of the hip, I want to try and adjust things a little bit so I can try and get the stretch onto the muscles. What we don't want to be doing is grinding bone against bone because that's not going to help us. I'm just going to hold that.
So again, you'll notice that I'm really not coming forward that much because I'm concentrating on getting my back straight. So that's really reducing the amount of forward lean that I can get. As I feel that muscle start to soften, I'm just going to bring it in, give the legs a bit of a shake. Give it a minute.
We're going to go back. We're going to do the same thing again. Again, hopefully I can get just a little bit firmer this time. Again, remembering to breathe with this.
Easy thing to forget. And then I've done that. I'm going to fold one leg across in front of me, put the foot over the top. I'm just going to hug the knee towards my chest.
So I should feel a stretch right down into my glutes. And again, if I want, I can turn this into a PNF stretch. I can just give it a bit of a push back, hold that for a count of 10, and then just relax and stretch some more. Again, if you find that you're getting pinching at the front of the hip with this, you can try and rearrange things a little bit.
This stretch doesn't suit everyone. I say there are a few people because of the shape of the hip joint, just because of how they're built, they find that they tend to feel this one right in the joint, in which case it's not quite such a helpful exercise. Maybe focus on some of the other stretches a little bit more instead. Switch over.
Again, across in front of me. I'm going to hug the knee towards me. Again, I can just push back just with the tip of the knee and then relax and stretch. Do the same thing again.
Push the knee back and relax and stretch. Stand up. Just give the legs a shake out. So that brings us to the end of our five day program.
What I recommend is going back, go over the days again, one to five, and just keep repeating them. So as with all of these programs, what you'll find is that it takes some time to see the results you want, but the important part is to keep doing those exercises. So try and build them into your everyday routine, your training routine, use them in your warm-ups, put them in your stretching sessions when you finish, and the more you can do that, the more not only will you get yourself out of pain, but you'll be able to stay out of pain as well. The more you do that, the more time you can spend doing jiu-jitsu, which is what we all want.
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