A Simple Quads Home Program
Reference:Jam B, APTEI The Knee Complex. www.aptei.com
Sometimes clinicians (including myself) have a tendency to abandon simple exercises for more ‘fancy’ complicated but more ‘trendy’ ones.
Wall sits for example are an easy exercise requiring no equipments other than a wall. I have found it an effective exercise to prescribe to my 80 year old or my 12 year old patients whom I feel could use a bit of quads bulk!
The great thing about wall sits is that the patient is in full control of not producing any knee pain during the exercise.
Important Point #1: Do NOT let the knees pass over the ankles, it is the difference between having knee pain or no pain! Basically the tibia should stay vertical the whole time.
Important Point #2: Flex the knees only to the point where there is absolutely no pain. There is no need to flex to 90�, 45� or 60�of knee flexion is sufficient.
Important Point #3: Push the feet down hard as if standing up, to make a strong isometric quadricepts contraction. Hold for 10 seconds repeat 5 times. Usually by the 3rd repetition a burn in the quads is felt.
Important point #4: You may progress the exercise by using an unstable gymball instead of a smooth wall (not recommended for the senior population!). You may also progress by holding 3kg dumbells.You may ultimately progress by doing single leg wall sits, hold for 10 seconds, repeat 5 times.
Posted on: July 02, 2010
Categories: Knee
