knee – Personal Euphoria: Pilates & Fitness Classes in CT

Lunge Form: How to do a lunge properly

Often people are afraid to do lunges or squats. They think those moves hurt their knees—either their experience is that it hurts the knees when they do them or they have been told those moves are bad for knees. The only problem with that is that in order to move throughout our day we need to be able to do a lunge and a squat. It’s not the lunge that is the problem. It is the lunge form.

Lunges enable us to get up and down off the floor. Squats get us on the toilet. A cross between a lunge and a squat enables us to get into the car. These are movements our body is doing whether we fear them or not. How do we resolve the question of whether or not we should be doing lunges? The answer: Learn how to do a lunge properly without hurting the knee.

Proper Lunge Form Tips

The video below will demonstrate and talk you though how to do a lunge safely, but before you start, here are some key factors to consider:

What […]

Lunge Form: How to do a lunge properlyMaggie Downie2019-05-10T14:13:27-04:00

A Lump Behind Knee

What’s that lump behind my knee? If you’ve ever felt a lump where that soft tissue at the back of your knee normally is, chances are you have a popliteal cyst (aka baker’s cyst). You probably want to talk to your doctor in case it is something else and also about the best way to treat it (drainage, physical therapy, or wait and hope it goes away on its own which can happen).

Some people will experience pain, others don’t. Range of motion can also be limited. Either way it is usually caused by fluid bulging out behind the knee and is associated with arthritis. According to the American Journal of Sports Medicine baker’s cysts are highly linked to meniscus tears—full tears or partial. Something is going wrong in the knee which then produces too much fluid. I’d recommend you should be doing some physical therapy because something is causing the baker’s cyst, pain or no pain.

I was hoping there was an interesting factoid about how prevalent baker’s cyst are among bakers. Maybe because they are on their feet all day in warm kitchens so their bodies produce more fluid, but it’s simply named after Dr. William Baker who first described […]

A Lump Behind KneeMaggie Downie2018-01-13T16:04:14-05:00

To Squat Or Not to Squat

This is probably not a question you give a lot of thought to on a regular basis. Most people with knee problems steer away from the squat, and it’s certainly good to be cautious. But if you don’t have knee problems, the squat can be a really important exercise. The squat is basically the muscles we use to stand up and sit down. Most of us stand and sit at work, when we eat, when we go to the bathroom, and when we get in the car. It’s a pretty important exercise for daily use.
As people age it’s one of the more important exercises they can probably do to keep themselves independent.

Recently I read two articles that argued for the importance of a really deep squat. One where you start standing and lower your glutes until they almost touch the floor between your heals. This isn’t for everyone and some people need to build up to this, but the articles made an interesting case

They claimed that we are very sensitive about knees in […]

To Squat Or Not to SquatMaggie Downie2017-09-12T19:31:37-04:00