Sebastian Brosche · 14 min · 877 words
Previously titled: Video 4 - MCL Sprain Rehab Program
Hi everyone, this is day four of our rehab plan for MCL strains. So today I'm going to use an ankle weight and a resistance band. Now the ankle weight, it's optional, you don't need one, but it does make things a little bit easier. You can do all of this with bands, but it's a bit fiddly.
Okay, so I'd recommend getting hold of one. This is very light, don't go over about a kilo or so, and the weight you need will depend on the state of the injury. So if it's very early stage, you may not need a weight at all. If it's later on, you may be able to manage it with a little bit more resistance.
So I'm just going to put the on the injured side. I'm going to start lying on my side. The other leg supports behind me, so I've got the foot on the floor, foot turned out parallel with the ground. I'm just going to do small up and down movements.
Again, if I feel a little bit of minor discomfort in the area of the injury, that's okay, but I don't want it to be more than that. So it's painful, reduce the weight. So if you're going to do this with bands, you can do it lying on a bench and just having a band between your foot and the bench. And then roll onto the other side.
I'm just going to carry on up and down. Again, keep that straight line with my hip. And back. Take the ankle weight off.
We're going to go to standing. Now we're going to go into a straight leg Romanian deadlift movement, but I'm not going to use any weight to start with. If you want to add weight the next time you do this program, that's absolutely fine. So I'm going to start standing on my uninjured leg, leaning forward, trying to keep my hips as level as I can, lifting my leg at the same pace as I drop my body forward.
And then I switch to the other side and do the same thing. I'm going to go into lunges. So I like to start these from the ground. Half kneeling position, 90 degree bend in my front leg, back nice and straight.
I'm going to resist the temptation to lean forwards over the front leg. So my head's going to go straight to the ceiling, push that hip forwards. We're going to go straight up. So for some people, this might feel like a bit too much pressure on that injured knee.
If it is, you can always use an assist. So you can have a hand on a wall or on a chair, just give yourself a little bit of extra support, or you can cut the movement short so that you're only doing a partial push up. So I'm going to go into lunges. I'm going to turn around, do the same thing, other side.
It's good to do both sides on this one particularly because both legs are working. And we're going to go straight back into the RDL. Switch sides. And then back into that lunge position.
Just switch through to the other side. And one more time through that sequence. Switch sides. Back into the lunge position.
And switch through to the other side. And then finally, grab that band. We're going to return to our squats. So hopefully you'll be able to get a little bit deeper than last time, but we're still going to be guided by how everything feels.
Again, you can go to a bench or a chair. That's quite an easy way of taking out the bottom part of that movement, making it feel a little bit more comfortable in the early stages. Then you're going to take the band off. Put it to one side.
We're just going to do a side shuffle. So I'm just going to go to one side, back to the other. So I can do this at walking pace if I need to, and then gradually pick up the speed as that knee starts to feel comfortable and I get more confident. Return to the band.
Right there. Back to the side shuffle. And stop in the middle. So just to cool down, lie on your side with the affected knee on top.
I'm going to reach my ankle. If I can't reach my ankle very well here, I can just wrap a belt around it or a towel. Just going to take the foot back and then I'm just going to gently push my hip forward. Like I said, if you haven't got movement of the knee, it's okay to use a towel there just to get a little bit more, to make it a bit easier for you.
So I'm just going to put a bit of a stretch down the front of that thigh. Relax. Just bend and straighten a few times. I'm just going to go back to the stretch one more.
And bend and straighten. Stop there. So that's all for day four. So once you've mastered those, we'll see you back for the fifth and final part of this program.
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