Exercise Suggestions

Nealybob

So I've just found out that my knees are shot, and I should never try to do any serious running again for the rest of my life. For a 30 year old service member, it's heartbreaking...expecially one who is over weight. Does anyone out there have any good cardio workouts that are low impact but give a good bang? Tried a spin class today and after about half an hour, my knees decided they didn't like that much better than running. Any help that you all can send my way would be wonderful. Thanks in advance!!!!

Neal

marjiva

I have bad knees as well and find the elliptical machines fantastic, you can burn calories without all the stress on your knees.

labreemike

an elliptical is probaly the wat to go.start slowly brfore you know it you'll be killing the cals

themommie

swimming is great exercise for anyone with health problems

ryssa1

I have found-in the past-that water aerobics is great! They have a lot of different water exercise classes nowadays so maybe you can find one that works for you! Give it a shot-the warm water feels great on your body!

KrissyD70

I am heading into surgery for a total knee replacement (at 40) and have some experience with trying to find exercies I can do with bad knees. Maybe you are going to have to settle for slow and steady like yoga, walking, biking, and swimming. I know they are not as strenuous as running but it sounds as though your running days are over. So find a low impact exercise you like. Experiment until you find something. It is definatly worth trying to save your knees. Besides that, my doctor told me that what you eat is sometimes more important than how you exercise.

scrappymel

elliptical! once you've built up some stamina, you can easily burn 1000 calories/hr with very low impact.

4lafz

As others have said - get yourself into the WATER! There is special resistance equipment by Speedo and Aqua Jogger that you may wish to look into as well as just swimming laps! Good luck!

summerblunden

Try Pilates. If you can get up and down from the ground, you'll be good. And like everyone else has said, swimming, water aerobics, elliptical, upright bike would be ok if you weren't doing it as intense as spinning, where you are sitting on the seat the whole time.

Start out slow, work your way up. Listen to your body, if it is PAINFUL, stop.

lreed

All right, I completely sympathize, I don't have bad knees but I have a REALLY bad back and can't have any high impact on it, i.e. jogging.
It does prove problematic when trying to raise the heart rate, yes the eliptical will work (I have found it isn't great on my back, not sure about your knees) And yes swimming is fabulous, if you have access to a pool, but guess what we all have access to, walking, yes I know it seems hard to believe but you can burn high calories by walking, a couple of ways to boost it,
1. Walk really fast, ya, no FASTER
2. you could do that funky speed walker kinda swing
3. I actually do punches as I walk, REALLY gets that heart rate up (think rocky balboa)
4. Wear a weighted vest and walk!!!
Good luck! Let me know if you find something else!

suzypsu

Hi Neal. My knees are horrible too. Admittedly, I am not nice to them with some of my workouts, but I find that a number of things seem to be pretty comfortable. I agree with the suggestions of swimming (breaststroke is iffy for me), elliptical (watch sudden stops or reversing direction because those actions can jarr the crap out of your knees) and yoga (rule of thumb - if it doesn't feel good, stop).

A few other options you may want to consider: boxing (using a bag or partner-held targets) is an incredible workout (I actually do kickboxing/MMA and it's surprisingly not-so-bad on the knees); consider having a trainer show you some routines with weights that are easy on your knees (I have an amazing trainer that shows me exercises that target multiple muscles and provide great cardio); vigorous calisthenics classes (think abs) can also get the blood moving; if your gym has a suspension trainer, give it a try, too - just getting used to it will totally increase the level of intensity of your workout.

My doctor said vitamin D can help. Can't hurt. He also gave me some exercises to strengthen my knees (which I haven't tried yet, shame on me). If you have access to a doctor that is familiar with sports medicine, give them a try (ask your primary - there was a doctor in my primary's practice that consults on sports med and I would have never known that he did unless I asked - my point being that it sounds fancy but it's not),

Good luck. Let us know what you try and how it works.