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What 1500 Knee Arthritis Cases Revealed
- 2 hours ago
- 13 min read
This article is a transcribed, edited summary of a video Bob and Brad recorded in December 2024. For the original video, go to https://youtu.be/mzGvh9pGCcc
Mike: Are you suffering from knee arthritis?
Brad: Well, if you are, you're in luck because we are going to go through 14 different options. Help me out, Mike.
Mike: We're going to go through 14 different tips to help keep your knee arthritis at bay. Some of them are strengthening, some of them are stretches, and some of them are things to avoid.
Brad: Right, and Bob actually did a pseudoscientific study on 1,410 different patients that we've seen, typically on an average of one year. So we've got a lot of information from real clinical experience.
Mike: But I like round numbers, so we're saying 1,500.
Brad: There you go. Let's get on with the program.
Mike: So we're going to go through 14 different tips for people with knee arthritis. We're going to start with the least important and go to the most important.
Brad: Alright, let's go with the first two large muscle groups, the hamstrings and the quadriceps. Now, if you're working your hamstrings, you're doing a good thing with strengthening those, but it does put undue stress on the joint itself. So we're going to stay away from exercises like this, isolating the hamstrings or what we call long arc quads or kicks. I have some weight on there. Those two, we could probably back off on or not do.
Mike: Now, most people would probably do these at a gym on machines, and those can really flare up the knee joint itself. So try to avoid those for a while. If they seem problematic for you, you use bands or cuff weights like that, they seem fine, then you can do them. But it's just something to keep in mind. The next tip is sitting like we are right now and letting your knees and legs kind of decompress. We kind of call this tailgate sitting because you're sitting on the end of a truck tailgate, and you're just letting gravity kind of pull and distract and get some motion in your legs.
Brad: That's right.
Mike: And you can do some little kicks even if you want.
Brad: And I've literally had people who've had trucks sit on their tailgate and do it. Oftentimes, they were farmers; they felt very comfortable with it, and it was a great, great functional therapy for them.
Mike: The next tip, number four, is to massage a muscle called the popliteus, which Brad is showing.
Mike: It's right behind your knee, and it typically helps with minor rotation within the tibia and the femur there. When you're walking, if it's tight, it can be problematic. Normally, you will notice that your knee pain is behind your knee itself, and it'll be tender when you palpate it. So you can just take your hands and dig in there and massage. If you happen to have a massage gun, you can certainly use it to massage in there as well. Whatever works best for you and is convenient.
Brad: Yeah, it's easy to do it. As I said, it helps particularly when you weight very initially on that leg, getting the mechanics of the knee to line up properly.
Mike: Now, tip number five is strengthening your core. Now, this only pertains to certain people who have a weak core. What can happen if you are weak enough? You may see some people who have a kind of Trendelenburg or waddle gait, like Brad is showing.
Mike: Your core is not just your abdominal muscles; it's also different muscle groups of your hip muscles as well. So doing some type of core strengthening exercises can help because if you have a waddle walk, you're going to be putting more impact forces on your knees, which can flare up your arthritis.
Brad: You're kind of babbling, too.
Mike: I liked it, I learned from you.
Brad: Actually it was a good, it was a good discussion and an explanation. The next one is the strength of your toes. And what that does, if you can curl your toes strongly, it helps maintain the arch. If your arch collapses, watch what happens when my arch collapses; my knee actually internally rotates and goes medial or inside. It throws off the mechanics of the knee, and it can make arthritis worse.
Mike: So the flexion of our big toe is curling your toe. In order to do this, you can try to do towel scrunches on the floor. I have a sock on and a towel, so I'm not going to be able to grip too much. If you are barefoot, you could grip more. Essentially, you just want to try to grab the towel with your toe and curl it under. If you happen to have some dice at home, this one's a little small, so it's kind of hard, but you can try to pick it up with your toes. That will work on your toe flexion as well. Strengthen that arch.
Mike: Yeah, it makes it a little fun. And you know, if you got cute socks like his are kind of cute. Little, little toe socks there, that's pretty cool.
Brad: I saw a patient with dog socks, and they even had ears.
Mike: See, it all comes into play, doesn't it? Now what about this next one? Drink more water. This is something that most people can do because most people do not drink enough water, actually. Especially as we age.
Mike: No, just making sure you're staying hydrated can impact arthritis all throughout your body, so it's important to drink your water. The next one is using some type of massage around the muscles of your knee. Now, if you have knee arthritis, you cannot massage your knee joint. It would hurt a lot if you were to run that right on your knee joint. So if you want to massage the areas around it, so we can do the quad regions up here, or you can do down below and get your calves as well. Because if you have tight calves, it can affect your knees as well, or maybe even the hamstrings.
Brad: And I'm really going to emphasize, you'll want to have the airhead as I have here.
Brad: It's actually full of air; it is soft. So when you do get close to the bones, which your knee does have enough exposure to bones, that is one area where my airhead really helps out. So you can work closely. If you do hit the kneecap or the medial epicondyle, it does not hurt. You just get off there and get back on the muscle. And again, we're working that popliteus as we did before, as well as the other muscles. So they can be a nice tool if you have one. If you want to get one, it can work out well as well.
Mike: Next thing to check out is making sure you have good motion or rotation within your hip joint, because your hip joint can directly affect your knee joint, as well as your back. But we're talking about knee arthritis, so make sure you have good internal and external rotation. To show this, you can just try sitting and let your leg fall out to the side. If you're tight, you're going to be more up here, so you're going to want to work on stretching that and rotating the other way as well. It's a little harder to do in a seated position, but you can simply sit at the edge of something taller like this, see how much movement you have between sides? Maybe I have knee arthritis on this side, and I have limited motion, then you're going to want to look up some type of hip stretches that you can do.
Brad: Right. The other thing is that if you're standing, you know, like in the olden days when smoking was a lot more popular, you put the cigarette butt down with your forefoot, and then you squash out that cigarette. You know, if you're in your sixties, you definitely remember watching people do this because there was a lot of smoking going on back in the sixties and seventies. But look what it does to my hip, it rotates it, and you're using some of the muscles, so you're actually doing a little bit of strengthening, getting that range of motion. And you'll notice, do one leg and do the other leg, and it's also good for the hip as well.
Mike: Now the next thing we want to, I was going to say fun fact, '89, they're still smoking in airplanes. That's when they just banished it.
Brad: In 1989?
Mike: That's what I heard the other day.
Brad: Wow, I didn't realize that.
Mike: No one fact check me. I swear it's the right date. Anyway, the next thing we do is you want to stretch your hip, flex your muscles. If they can become tight, they can directly affect your knee. We actually have one muscle called the rectus femoris, which flexes your hip and extends your knee. So if that one's tight, it can be very problematic. To do this, most people, if they're having knee arthritis, don't want to get down and kneel to stretch. So you can lie on the edge of a firm surface. If your bed is firm enough, you can try that. You're going to start with both knees to your chest. If I'm stretching this one, I'm going to drop it off the edge. Now, to get the rectus femoris muscle, I'm actually going to flex my knee as far as I comfortably can, and pull the opposite knee towards my chest. I'm going to hold this for about 30 seconds and perform it on each side. Don't let your leg drift too far out because I'm not feeling much of a stretch now.
Brad: Yeah, so that rectus femoris muscle actually goes from your pelvis all the way down to your kneecap, and that's why this motion here is going to get that muscle that usually does not get stretched. If you don't feel comfortable lying down on your bed or if you don't have a plinth at home, you can use a chair like this. A nice, firm chair with armrests is probably best. Turn sideways, so just one butt cheek is on the chair, and then go down like this. And I like to do this and just kind of rock it backwards like this. Hand on the hip and stretch back. And that's a nice way to get to those hip flexor stretches.
Mike: Now, the next thing we want to talk about is strengthening your hip abductors. We're at number 11 now. We're getting there.
Brad: Yeah, moving along.
Mike: So your hip abductors keep you upright when you are standing and walking. If they're weak, that waddle walk we talked about earlier can become present, and that can affect your knees. If you have weak muscles here, it can also impact your knees, making them cave in more. So what we want to do is you can just simply walk sideways. If you are feeling uncomfortable or unsteady, you can use a countertop or a cane when doing this.
Mike: If you think, "Hey, this is way too easy for me," you want to add some resistance. If you have any type of loop band, even ankle weights, whatever you have, I just put it around my knees, make my legs stay out as I'm stepping sideways. This is a good hip abductor strengthening exercise. Brad, are you going to show a standing version?
Brad: Yeah. So you're putting on an ankle weight. Now I've actually had people, so they didn't have to purchase an ankle weight because you don't need a lot of weight. If they happen to live in, you know, Minnesota or Wisconsin, you've got winter boots that weigh a couple of pounds, and then you're going to work it like this. Good control. Do not point the toe out; you are going to put it straight in front of you and have good control. You're not letting it bump, and we're certainly not doing this. So up, good posture, 10 to 12 of these up to 15 if you want, and do both legs.
Mike: Tip number 12, we're getting to the more important numbers here.
Brad: That would be a dozen.
Mike: Thank you for telling me what that is. You should not walk with your knees locked out. So what we mean by this is when you're walking and stepping, your leg goes out in front of you. Your heel striking. My knee is completely straight. This is going to put a lot of impact forces on the knee joint itself, which is already inflamed from your arthritis.
Mike: So, what we want to do is land with a nice soft bent knee. See how my knee joint is bent? Now my muscles are taking the shock absorption versus my joints. In order to do this, go to your house, go barefoot or in slippers, and just walk around. Naturally, you're not going to like heel striking, walking barefoot, or with minimalist shoes because it doesn't feel very good. So just walk with a nice soft bent knee. You're going to take shorter steps to begin with. Over time, it'll start to feel more natural.
Brad: Yeah, we've had success with these with people with arthritis. As soon as they start doing that forefoot bent knee, and it hurts when they go heel strike, as they usually have, it's like, "Oh wow, that does feel better." Put a little smile on their face. It does take a little time to get used to that, though. So be patient. It's probably not going to happen in one or two days, getting used to it. So what, are we on 13?
Mike: We're on tip number 13.
Brad: You know what that is?
Mike: Unlucky.
Brad: No baker's dozen.
Mike: Oh, I was going to say Jason from "Friday the 13th". Anyway, the next one is walking with a walking stick or cane if you're having a flare-up. Now we're not saying you have to use it forever. However, if you're having a lot of knee pain, using a cane or walking stick can take a lot of load off of your joint itself. So if my left knee is bothering me, you're actually going to want to use it on the opposite side. This cane's a little tall for me, so get it set up right for you first. But just simply having that pressure going off of your knee joint into the cane can help. You don't need to use it forever, as long as your pain goes away in time.
Brad: Yeah, walking sticks are nice as well. You just do it properly. The opposite leg goes with the stick, and it also gives you a little more upper-body motion and strengthening. So it's a win-win situation.
Mike: If you're at a point where you need a walker, that's perfectly fine as well. It's just that most people don't want to do the initial process of going to a cane because they don't want to be seen with it.
Brad: Yeah.
Mike: But it can happen.
Brad: Just try it. If it makes your knee feel better, you can walk without pain, you'll want to use one.
Mike: Now, the most important thing you want to do is actually strengthen your glutes, and we're going to be talking about the glute max. Now, we already talked about the hip abductors, the glute medius muscles. So when you are walking, like we talked about with forefoot walking, your muscles are going to engage more. And the most important one is your glute max. When you're actually pushing your leg back like this, your butt muscle can handle a lot of walking. Your joints can't handle as much. So to try this out initially in your house, walk with your hands on your buttocks, how you normally would without soft knee bending, and then try going up on your tippy toes. You should feel your glute max engaged a lot more. That's important. Some people, if it's not firing properly, want to try this exercise.
Brad: Right. Firing properly, in other words, those muscles you can feel-
Mike: Aren't engaged properly.
Brad: Engaged. Yes, we must use proper terminology. Now, if you want to go up to a countertop for balance, you're going to take for that right glute max, you're going to bend this knee about 90 degrees. That's here, not way up, not way down. Right in the middle. And we're going to kick back. Not too high. We're not kicking the ceiling. It's not a mule kick, but it's that mid-range, good control, and that's going to make that glute maximus fire. If you want to rotate your foot in it this way, that actually isolates that muscle a little bit more, and I can feel it more just after a few repetitions. So 10 to 15 repetitions, do that three times a day, and do it on both legs.
Brad: Once those muscles start to fire and they really realize what they need to do without thinking about it, all this comes together, and it really works out well. So be patient with it. 14, that's a lot of things to think about.
Mike: Yes. Think of which tips pertain to you specifically. Obviously, they don't work for everyone. And if you want to check out another video on how to actually strengthen your knee, watch "Best 5 Exercises to Stop Arthritic Knee Pain!"
Brad: There you go. These are good tips. They are serious, and some of them will pertain to you and some won't.
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