PIllar 4: Get it Strong
Check with Your Doctor
While most Knee Osteoarthritis exercise program are not excessively intense and can be performed safely by almost everyone, it is a good idea to check with your doctor before starting any exercise program for any precautions you may want to take considering your health status and any medications you might be on.
Pain with Exercise
Some degree of discomfort or pain with exercise is normal. A good method for monitoring your symptoms is the “Traffic Light System for Pain with Exercise”. As you exercises, check yourself with the following scale. A pain level of 5 or more, or pain intensifying for greater than 24 hours, indicates the exercise or program you are doing needs to be adjusted. This is best done in consultation with a physiotherapist.
How Often Do I Need to Exercise?
For the purposes of Knee Osteoarthritis rehabilitation, most of the studies show improvement with performing exercise 2-3 times per week. Even small amounts can make a difference. In general, it is better to start slowly and gauge your response before doing exercise more frequently.
Keeping Your Joints in Alignment and Other Tips
It is important to keep your hips, knees and feet aligned as you do exercises for your knees. Click on the video to the right to watch a 5 minute introduction to exercising with Knee Osteoarthritis from one of bracing partners, Springloaded Technologices. This video covers alignment, using a basic sit to stand exercise as an example, but also covers some other great tips for starting an exercise program with Knee OA, as well as reviews a few other concepts we have already covered in this course.