4 Quadriceps (VMO) Strengthening Exercises for Painful Knees

whether you've got General achy knees or you've been diagnosed with a condition like patellar tendonitis quad tendonitis meniscus tears ACL tears or osteoarthritis activating your quadriceps especially your VMO should be your first priority in this video you're going to learn why and four exercises to do just that [Music] coach E from Precision movement and in this video we're going to cover the quadriceps and how to get them activated specifically the VMO the medial aspect of the quadriceps to keep your knees healthier to fix any pain or problems that you might have now if you're here I know you're into learning and educating yourself on how to keep your body physically healthy and moving and I commend you for that not everybody's doing that so kudos to you now if you want to keep learning along with me subscribe to the channel turn on the notification Bell and we'll let you know whenever we upload a new video to keep you moving freely and without pain in this video I learned something over the years when we started working with Dr B and she became our chief medical officer because I used to believe that the VMO the medial aspect of the quads wasn't actually that important for healthy knees I'd read some studies did some thinking heard some things from people that I learned from and that's the stance that I took for a while then I met Dr B and she taught me a couple of really important points and I really trust her knowledge and experience because she was a surgeon for 30 years trusted by every pro team here in Toronto so what she says carries a lot of weight and what she taught me were two things one was when there's swelling in the knee let's say you're running and you tweak your knee maybe a torn meniscus and he gets well swelling in the knee atrophy of the quads can start to occur within 24 hours so that goes to show you that if you've ever had a swollen knee that you really need to make sure that you get the quadriceps activated and working and firing as soon as possible soon as humanly possible we do that really quickly within 24 hours for sure in our programs the second thing she taught me was she would actually after performing surgery on somebody's knees have them activating the quads in the recovery room so it's so so important to get them firing and to keep that strength there and the reason why is because you wanna be able to achieve what we call terminal knee extension so that's full knee extension where the knee is locked out not hyper extended for you hyper mobile folks but full knee extension with active quadriceps firing when you have that you make sure that you get good blood flow and you load the knee properly if you can't achieve terminal knee extension every step you take puts more wear and tear on the cartilage and the passive tissues in the knee the passive structures and over time that will cause premature degeneration and that can lead to premature osteoarthritis so keep the quads active and strong maintain that terminal knee extension which is what they do and your knees will thank you for it and we're going to go through four exercises now and to corroborate Dr B's experience in my research for this video I found a study called do pre-operative vastus medialis volume and quality affect functional outcomes after total knee arthroplasty and it was published in 2022 and their conclusion was that increased vastus medialis fat infiltration is associated with worse functional outcomes after the total knee surgery preserving vastus medialis quality could improve functional outcomes and surgeons should encourage patients to perform quadriceps strengthening exercises before surgery and according to Dr b as soon as possible after surgery so Dr B knows what she's talking about now before we get into the four exercises I just want to do a quick Anatomy primer the four heads of the quadriceps so vastus medialis oblique that's why you get the VMO is right here that's this lateralis oblique of yellow or just VL is right here superficially we have the rectus femoris now this muscle crosses the knee and the hip joint so it does extend the knee but it also flexes the hip it's really important so you're going to remember that when we get to the exercises and then deep to these three heads is called the vastus intermedius and this is another muscle that we want to ensure we get firing for proper knee function so that's the anatomy now let's get to the exercises the first exercise we're going to go through is to address tissue quality to make sure that the quads and the tendons have pliability and can move properly and have good blood flow you'll need a foam roller for this and you might have seen it before foam rolling the quads but we had a little tweak which is why we call it active self myofascial release start with the foam roller above the knee put your weight into it and you roll down as you flex your knee bring your heel to your butt until you get to your hip area and then you reset and then active component activates the hamstrings lengthens the quadriceps and it shuts the quadriceps off allowing you to get deeper go nice and slow and if you find a hot spot where it's really painful recommend you just stay there for a moment say that's really hot breathe and try to melt the muscle over the roller and then continue flexing the knee as you roll up towards the hip change the angle of your body you can go right to the IT band if you go on the side and continue to flex the knee that will help lengthen the quads the vastus lateralis and separate it from the IT band just change it up working about one to two minutes per leg and that's going to help to restore proper tissue quality I recommend you do it every day for up to two weeks and at that point you could probably drop down to three four days a week for two to four weeks to the point where you're at two even one time a week and that'll help you maintain good tissue quality now foam rolling has gotten a bit of a bad wrap some people saying that it's useless doesn't work and there's always new research coming out I've personally found just from personal experience that it feels good and it just feels looser I get a little less tension in the muscles and massages are good everybody loves massages so this is some a massage you can give to yourself and in my research I also found a study that showed a mechanism that might prove foam rolling especially beneficial for fixing quadriceps function this study looks at the effects of self myofascial release on the penation angle of the vastus medialis oblique that's the angle of the fibers as they go into the quadriceps tendon after a seven-week program where the participants performed foam rolling for three times a week they found there was a significant decrease in penation angle and while there's no clinical significance shown because these were asymptomatic participants it shows that self myofascial release does indeed have an effect on the quality of the tissues the second exercise we're going to go through is for what I call Gross activation just getting everything firing nice and strong this is the prone hip extension like prone down on your stomach and all you're going to do is activate the glutes straighten the knee so get that terminal in the extension and then dorsiflex the ankle bring the toe up toward the knee and try to really fire everything glutes quads hamstrings calves tibialis anterior maintain a straight knee hold that strong activation for 30 seconds you're trying to get deeper into dorsiflexion deeper into hip extension but keep the low back the shoulders the neck relaxed breathe holding strong it'll get tiring and really focusing on the terminal and the extension so the straight locked out knee when you're done lower slowly keep everything on and then gradually relax all the muscles and this is just going to get everything firing we want to make sure that we have all the heads going not just the VMO we need all the heads going of the quadriceps and this exercise will help to make sure that they're all fired up do this for three reps per side hold for 30 seconds and you can alternate left right left right left right that'll help to mitigate some of the fatigue the third exercise is now going to work precise activation so here we're going back to that Anatomy just going to show you this is what VMO activation looks like VMO prioritized activation you can see this area starts to swell up and contract and this is what I would say improper activation for this exercise would be you can see this all swells up and fires first recfam and vastus laterals that's what we don't want we want to prioritize the VMO and the other muscles will come on but we want to make sure we get the VMO going first and it stays on throughout so this exercise called the extended knee ankle Flex and we started off ramping up VMO activation just gradually ramp it up this will help you develop control and awareness of your muscle and once it's ramped up as high as it's going to go without the rec Femme going too crazy you straighten the knee slowly feel that VMO on through every degree of that knee extension once you're at terminal in the extension you're locked out everything is going to be on you're going to plant your Flex at the ankles point the foot not so much flexing the toes but more pushing the balls of the feet the metatarsals down keeping terminal in the extension activation of the quads about a 10 second hold there and then slowly move to dorsiflexion again not really working the toes but more pulling the foot up working the shin muscle tibialis anterior holding for 10 seconds the need angle doesn't change at all return to neutral keeping everything on slowly go to the floor and once you hit the floor gradually ramp down the activation and this is a very precise activation getting the VMO activated first and maintaining it throughout the exercise so this exercise is great if you've got achy knees and there's one exercise to do I would recommend you do this right away and do it regularly and that'll maintain good function of the knees and it's almost like taking a Tylenol when you do this so fine it'll drop your pain level down a few notches and even get you walking straighter without a limp the last exercise I'm going to show you today is for the process of what we call functional integration so we're going to integrate what we fixed up which in this case was VMO activation and terminal in the extension range and integrate that into a movement pattern that we use and in this case we're going to use lunge but you can do it for squats hinges any kind of movement patterns that you do for this exercise we're going to take a split stance and start off we're not going to go really deep into the lunge I'm doing it here just to show that you can use support if you need it but if you can do it without that's fine now with functional integration we want to make sure we've got everything working well so in this case I'm going to activate the short and skinny foot or get the active Arch going so what we call metatarsal pressure and pushing through the metatarsals not so much the toes making the foot skinnier making it shorter pulling the forefoot towards the heel and that gives me that active Arch that so many people are missing these days now in this split stance before I start I'm going to poke the VMO make sure it's on and from here I'm going to load the foot unload the back foot and then I'm pretty much balancing on one foot and focusing on getting terminal in the extension using the quadriceps holding here up for five seconds to work some balance in that active support and then lower down back to the start position making sure the quads are on and the VMO is on and then I can take a little break really relax everything and go again activate the VMO unload the back foot load the front foot I got metatarsal pressure standing up getting terminal in the extension balancing here for about five seconds good posture and then lowering down making sure the VMO and the quads are on and then relax for this exercise do anywhere from three to six reps two to three sets and that will help you to create those movement patterns the neuromuscular patterns from your brain to your body that has you use the VMO and the quads in this type of motion it's a very good transfer to sport the gym and everyday life so those are the four exercises to get your quadriceps specifically your VMO active and strong I hope you like them hope you learned something new and if you did like them give us a like down below if you've got any questions leave us a comment and make sure you're subscribed to our Channel I've got a couple other videos that'll be helpful for you if you've got knee pain you can check it out there and there and definitely check out this new program that we're launching or it'll be launched already maybe by the time you watch this called the knee pain solution and this is our Progressive comprehensive approach to make sure your Oda pin and you prevent pain from happening in the future so check that out thanks for watching and I'll see you soon keep moving

Channel: Precision Movement

Views: 450,701

Keywords: vmo, vastus medialis, vastus medialis exercises, quadriceps, quads, quads workout, quad strengthening exercises, quads strengthening, quads strengthening exercises, vmo exercises, knees, vmo strengthening exercises, vmo exercises for knee, knee pain, patellar tendonitis, acl injury, quad tendonitis, meniscus, acl tear, meniscus tear, patellar tracking disorder, osteoarthritis, vmo activation, exercises, stretches, mobility, pain, knee pain relief, vastus medialis oblique

Id: 48qFs3oo8Rs

Length: 14min 44sec (884 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 23 2022