A Good Exercise for The Knee
I have been struggling with left knee cap pain since January 2015. Later this pain with diagnosed as chondromalacia patella. After many physical therapy sessions and other alternative treatments without much improvement, I recently found an exercise that I think will finally help me walk out of this knee pain. I want to share it with people when suffer from similar conditions, and hopefully this information can help more people.
The exercise is called Eccentric Quad.
Below is a good video demonstration from YouTube. I do this exercise 10 reps/set, 3 sets/day. Remember to gradually ease into the movement (think warm-up). Avoid bending too deep at the beginning. The knee cap should not go over the toes at any point during the exercise. And stop and rest immediately if you feel pain.
The key to Eccentric Quad is to quad down slowly and controlled, and to come up quickly and strong. The word “eccentric” in its name stems from this slow and fast tempo alteration.
If you have pain extending your leg straight while in a sitting position, or have trouble returning your leg back to a bent position after the extension, then this exercise will be especially helpful to you.
The essence of Eccentric Quad, as I understand it, is to exercise the quadriceps muscles in the front of the leg above the knee cap. The active engagement of the quadriceps through all movements help keep the patella track correctly in its grove. When extending the leg straight, the quads should flex to pull the patella up its grove. When bending the leg, the quad should gradually reduce its flexion to guide the patella back down. In some knee pain cases, like mine, the quads have lost the strength and/or the memory to engage in these motor control activities. The Eccentric Quad exercise helps to get this ability back to the quads by simulating the same leg extension and flexion while keeping the movement close-chained (close-chained exercises are safer).
