Knee injuries are no fun, because they not only come with pain, but they also limit your movements and take quite a long time to heal completely and for you to get back to where you were before the injury. Lucky there are thing you can do to aid in your knee injury recovery and to make this process take a bit less time than it usually would.
#1: Rest, ice, elevate
The vary first thing you should do when you are recovering from a knee injury is give your knee time to heal. If you start activity too soon, without the injury being properly healed, you can easily re-injure your knee and even make the injury worse. So rest your knee and avoid putting stress or weight on it, if it still huts to do it. And start to walk on it only when that doesn’t hurt anymore. Then I would also recommend your icing your knee to keep the swelling down and to ease the pain that knee injuries bring, as well as elevating your knee when you aren’t standing will also provide pain relief as well as quicker healing.
#2: Talk to your doctor
Before you start any additional activity, you should talk to the doctor that is treating your injured knee. There are many different knee injuries that one can sustain, and they all also require different times to heal and different recovery process. Consult with your doctor as to when would be the best time for you to ease back into exercising and how to exactly do it, so you can do it without being scared that you will do something to hurt your knee again. You can even go to a physical therapist if you want, because these doctors specialize in injury recovery and will be able to provide you with the best possible advice.
#3: Stretch and strengthen
One of the first things to do, when your injury is beginning to heal and you want to get back on track of being active and working out, is to stretch the knee and strengthen it. Many times knee injuries take your knee out of commission for several months, in which time the muscles around your knee can get weak and stiff. So do strengthening and stretching exercises with your injured knee, and your knee will be able to bare your weight and the stress of movement better, hurting less and letting you get back do exercising and doing simple everyday activities as soon as possible.
#4: Ease back into it
The most important thing to remember when you are starting to be active and working out after a knee injury is to ease into it. You absolutely cannot just start vigorous training, not only because you will be in excruciating pain if you do this, but also because that can hurt your knee again, throwing all of the healing that your injury had done out of the window and leaving your injured once again. Start slowly and make sure to intensify your workouts for about 10 to 15 % at most, because this way you won’t be over-working your injured knee, but still will be able to get back in shape.
#5: Compress your knee
Also think about getting a some sort of compress for your injured knee. It can be knee sleeves, simple elastic bandages that you tie around your knee or even basketball knee pads that often have the sleeve like abilities plus an added padding on the knee for shock absorption. This type of compression gear will keep your knee tight, in shape as well as will keep your joint warm for longer, which will all help you with the pain or discomfort you will be sure to feel at first when you start exercising after a knee injury.
This article was brought to you by KneeSafe.com