Suggestions for exercise substitutes

[Freddy5Fingers]

Long story short. I went to the Dr last week about some knee pain I have been having since the 1st of June. Xrays came back showing that I have a "loose body" in my knee and the Dr passed me onto an Orthopedic surgeon. He also said that I need to stop running (really bummed because that was my #1 stress reliever) and no more squats/lunges/lower body exercise that cause stress to my knee.

So not being one to slow down any, does anyone have any suggestions as to what I can do to replace these exercises? Has anyone been down this road and have some insight?

I have no idea what the surgeon is going to tell me next week. The last time I went "under the knife" was in 1977 for a tonsilectomy (spent 3 days in the hospital for that one). One last thing, the running NEVER bothered my knee, but I'll stop for now.

[Centurion]

It sounds like you should probably stick to low impact stuff (i.e. swimming) until you get some professional advice. While I haven't been down that road personally (touch wood) I do have a close friend that has suffered on and off after tearing his ACL a number of years ago, it's been a while since his surgery but he still wears a brace for a lot of exercises (I think mostly running, don't think he wears it in the gym) and even with it has still irritated it when we've been playing football or some such.

[andygates]

The bike is also a low-impact substitute for running. It still involves the knee a lot, but may be suitable as the knees aren't jarred or weight-bearing.

[Mad Rocker]

I'm in sort of the same boat (although not quite as serious) at the moment, as I have a broken ankle so I can't weight bear on my left leg.

My solution has been to just do upper-body work seated. I'm having to do significantly more 'vanity lifts' than usual (kickbacks, curls etc), but hey, it's something.

Dumbbells are much more manageable than a barbell, so you may want to stick with those. But with them you can pursue what is essentially a bodybuilding split but without the leg work (and most back exercises too). Here's an example of what you could do:

Workout A -shoulders (reps/sets to your liking)

-Seated dumbbell shoulder press

-Seated front raise

-Seated lateral raise

-Reverse flyes (if you can manage to do it sitting down)

Warm-up/cool-down with press-ups and sit-ups.

Workout B -chest

-Dumbbell floor press (if you can lie on the floor without causing pain in your leg)

-Flyes

-Dips

-Deep pushups (hands on dumbbells or whatever else you can find)

Workout C -triceps and abs

-Close grip pushups (give fingertip pushups a try if you are that way inclined)

-Kickbacks

-One arm dumbbell extensions

-Weighted situps or crunches

-Pushups

Workout D -biceps

-All manner of curls you can think of, quite straight-forward.

I'm basically doing the above in conjunction with the physio's exercises (which are mostly stretches) and while I am missing a lot of my favourite exercises, I can at least do something. Good luck with next week, hope it's not too serious.

[Guest Carjack]

Take the doctor's advice, get it fixed and see a physiotherapist about rehab for your knee.

In the meantime, push ups and pull ups. Grow some Bruce Lee lats while you heal.

[Mad Rocker]

Take the doctor's advice, .

This is important. I only started exercising again once the physio said it was okay (well, implied it). And bear in mind that I'm not doing much else activity-wise at the moment as I'm waiting for Uni to start and finished work and school last month - in other words, I have lots of time for resting and recovery. This is always important, but is obviously even more so when our bodies have to heal as well as repair.

[NorthRoad]

Get a second opinion on the squats. If you squat correctly it doesn't ruin your knees. I ruined my knees with bad squatting, and fixed them with good squatting. But I'm not a doctor or a physiotherapist, I just think you should get seccond opinions about it.

[dracopervicax]

Injured my knee back in February, so I feel your pain and frustration! Here are some low impact things my friends recommended:

Swimming

Biking/exercise bike

Rowing (a la crossfit)

You can try and spend some time building upper body strength, if you feel like you need to work on it. Steve also has a good post about training while injured.

I JUST recovered from my knee injury in July -- from February! Knees take a long tie to heal, but it's worth it! Don't short cut it and don't try and do things you know you shouldn't do. Speaking from experience, it will only make things worse!

I know that you like to run, but you might want to consider changing that exercise to something else -- running isn't very good for your joints, especially if you're overweight, but even when you're not.

Just some thoughts