What Are The Best Strength Exercises To Do If I Have Achy Knees?

July 1, 2009— -- Question: What are the best strength exercises to do if I have achy knees?

Answer: There are a variety of causes of knee pain, and to isolate out which exercises are going to be best for you to cure that knee pain is very difficult to do. It's very important to understand the mechanics of how knee pain occurs, and in each individual that might be different. However, commonly knee pain can be caused by poor knee control, which generally is guided through the hip muscles.

So, strengthening the hip muscles, especially the hip abductors we call them, like the gluteus medius and some of the gluteus maximus, will help control the knee position during movement, during exercise, which can possibly lead to reducing that achiness in your knees or that pain in your knees. So while it might seem counterintuitive that we're going to attack a different part of the body to help knee pain, it's been proven through research that good knee control can actually help a lot in positioning the patella and positioning the knee in the proper location so that we can move with good function and without pain.