{"id":24714,"date":"2025-03-26T08:00:12","date_gmt":"2025-03-26T09:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=24714"},"modified":"2025-03-26T09:28:58","modified_gmt":"2025-03-26T09:28:58","slug":"knees-hurt-this-exercise-can-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=24714","title":{"rendered":"Knees Hurt? This Exercise Can Help."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Strength training can be one of the best treatments for chronic knee pain. Here\u2019s how to do it safely.<\/p>\n

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Caitlin Berzok used to be scared of strength training. She occasionally exercised with ankle weights but worried that heavy lifting might slow her down or lead to injury.<\/p>\n

In 2015, she got serious about running, progressing from shorter races to marathons, and just a year later she started having chronic knee pain. Soon, she could barely run a mile. Ms. Berzok, then 29, tried resting, stretching and working with a physical therapist, but nothing helped.<\/p>\n

Then a new physical therapist had her try weight lifting with a kettlebell<\/a>, starting light and eventually working up to 40 pounds. She\u2019d leave a session drenched in sweat after wide-legged squats, curtsy squats<\/a>, Bulgarian split squats<\/a>, Romanian deadlifts<\/a> and lunges. \u201cI never knew there were so many different types of squats,\u201d Ms. Berzok said.<\/p>\n

Within a year she was back to running marathons pain-free, and over the years she has kept lifting.<\/p>\n

Frequent knee pain affects about 25 percent<\/a> of adults. While a generation ago experts often recommended rest and ice to alleviate knee pain, evidence now suggests that strength training<\/a> can reduce pain and increase range of motion<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cStronger muscles help distribute the load more evenly across the knee,\u201d said Dr. Nima Mehran, an orthopedic surgeon in Los Angeles, Calif., who specializes in the knee. Building muscles reduces the amount of stress on the joint<\/a>, he said, and it can also improve alignment, which in turn helps prevent injury.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople think that strength training will hurt their knees or cause further damage,\u201d said Leada Malek, a physical therapist in San Francisco who specializes in sports medicine and the author of \u201cScience of Stretch.\u201d But that\u2019s not actually the case, she said.<\/p>\n

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Strength training can be one of the best treatments for chronic knee pain. Here\u2019s how to do it safely.Caitlin Berzok used to be scared of strength training. She occasionally exercised with ankle weights but worried that heavy lifting might slow her down or lead to injury.In 2015, she got serious about running, progressing from shorter races to marathons, and just a year later she started having chronic knee pain. Soon, she could barely run a mile. Ms. Berzok, then 29, tried resting, stretching and working with a physical therapist, but nothing helped.Then a new physical therapist had her try weight lifting with a kettlebell, starting light and eventually working up to 40 pounds. She\u2019d leave a session drenched in sweat after wide-legged squats, curtsy squats, Bulgarian split squats, Romanian deadlifts and lunges. \u201cI never knew there were so many different types of squats,\u201d Ms. Berzok said.Within a year she was back to running marathons pain-free, and over the years she has kept lifting.Frequent knee pain affects about 25 percent of adults. While a generation ago experts often recommended rest and ice to alleviate knee pain, evidence now suggests that strength training can reduce pain and increase range of motion. \u201cStronger muscles help distribute the load more evenly across the knee,\u201d said Dr. Nima Mehran, an orthopedic surgeon in Los Angeles, Calif., who specializes in the knee. Building muscles reduces the amount of stress on the joint, he said, and it can also improve alignment, which in turn helps prevent injury.\u201cPeople think that strength training will hurt their knees or cause further damage,\u201d said Leada Malek, a physical therapist in San Francisco who specializes in sports medicine and the author of \u201cScience of Stretch.\u201d But that\u2019s not actually the case, she said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24716,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24714"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24717,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24714\/revisions\/24717"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}