The 7 Best Exercises For Stronger Knees (Adults 40+)
Building strong, healthy knees is the best way to treat knee pain and arthritis, keep active, and maintain your lifestyle as you get older. With that being said, it’s important that adults over 40 pick exercises that are both SAFE and EFFECTIVE. The following exercises are designed to help you build stronger knees while placing minimal impact on the knee joint itself to avoid aggravating any pain or injuries.
Glute Bridge
It may seem strange that the first exercise I pick for stronger knees is a hip strengthening exercise. But it’s important to know that most movement that occurs at the knee is controlled by the muscles at your hip. Which is why building strong hips it VITAL for building stronger knees. The glute bridge is a safe and effective exercise to target your hips. It also has many different variations so you can continue to challenge yourself as you get stronger and more confident with the movement.
10 Glute Bridge Variations
Side Plank Clamshell
The glute med is another hip muscle that controls movement down at your knee. Building glute med strength helps to prevent too much side to side movement at the knee that contributes to menisucs problems, arthritis and other common knee injuries. The clamshell is a popular exercise to target this muscle group. The side plank clamshell combines this movement with the side plank exercise for a full body knee strengthening exercise for adults.
The Best Exercises For Glute Med Strength
Kettlebell Romanian Deadlift
The Kettlebell RDL helps strengthen your hamstring/glute complex for stronger knees. It also helps to ingrain the hip hinge movement pattern to limit impact on your knee as you move throughout your day. Learning, understanding, and practicing the hip hinge movement pattern is necessary for building stronger knees.
Read More About The Importance Of Movement Patterns
Single Leg Step Up
The step up is my favorite exercise for stronger knees in adults. It’s a low impact exercise that build single leg strength. Because we are targeting each leg individually it also helps to improve side to side imbalances for less impact through your knees. It’s also easy to make as easy or as hard as you want to match your ability level. Simply change height of your step and/or hold weights to progress this exercise into a challenging exercise for stronger knees.
The Reverse Lunge
The lunge is one of the best full body, functional exercises for stronger knees. The reverse lunge is a slightly safer variation for your knees than the forward lunge. The reverse lunge also targets your glute/hamstring complex a bit more than it’s forward variation. Like all of these exercise, it is easy to progress to make as easy or challenging as you want.
10 Lunge Variations For Stronger Knees
The Squat
The Squat is another full body movement that improves movement patterns, mobility, and strength for stronger, healthier knees. Finding the right variations to start and working your way up to more challenging variations will help you build strength and confidence in this movement.
10 Squat Variations For All Ability Levels
The Kettlebell March
The kettlebell march improves balance, single leg strength, and functional core strength for stronger knees in adults. To get the most out of this exercise it’s important to use a heavier weight. Perform slow and controlled to work on balance.
For adults over 40, the best exercises to build stronger knees are ones that are both safe and effective. This means they target the muscles that provide stability at the knee while limiting impact that goes through the knee itself. Incorporating these exercises into your strength routine will help you keep active and maintain your lifestyle as you get older.
Learn More About How To Perform Each Exercise With Dr. Baird At The Video Below
For the last 12 years I’ve been helping adults build the strength and confidence to live active, healthy, and happy lives. My free program ‘Solving Pain With Strength’ gives you a step-by-step, approachable way to build strength without stressing your joints. Download it below and get started feeling better today.
