HOW: Start in a standing position with your feet together and a slight bend in both knees. Slightly hinge forward at the waist and cross your arms across your chest with your hands on your shoulders. From here, turn your hips from side to side while keeping your upper body still or lifting your feet up. Turn to each side for the prescribed amount of reps. 

 

FEEL: You should feel a stretch in your hip muscles as you go back and forth. 

 

COMPENSATION: Keep your feet and upper body still, only move your hips.

HOW: Anchor a band at a lower level closer to the ground. In a standing position, face away from the anchor and grab onto the band with one hand holding it underneath you. Start in a tall standing position with a slight bend in the knees. Hinge forward at the waist with your hand going back with the band. From here, drive your hips forward and push into the ground with your legs while pulling the band to return your body to the upright starting position. 

 

FEEL: You should feel your glutes, hamstrings, and hip muscles working as you hinge forward and come back up. Your shoulder muscles are working as they pull the band. 

 

COMPENSATION: Don’t curve your back, keep it flat. Don’t have too much movement in the arm holding the band, let the band pull your arm back and keep it down and in front of you as you pull it back up.

HOW: Begin in a standing position. Shift your weight to one leg. Take the other foot and hook it around the back of the standing leg. Cross your arms across your chest, or grab onto a stick if needed. From here, drive the bent knee out and in a circular motion as much as your hip allows. Do this all while keeping your upper body still for the prescribed amount of reps. 

 

FEEL: You should feel your hip muscles working and stretching as you rotate to each side. 

 

COMPENSATION: Only allow movement at the hips, keep your upper body still.

The Long Arc Quads exercise is designed to help strengthen your quadriceps muscles in the front of your thigh. These muscles are important for improving knee extension ROM and activities of daily living including standing, walking, and sitting.

– Position yourself with your feet hanging off the edge of a surface such as your bed, table, or chair with your knee positioned right at the edge

– Kick your leg straight by squeezing your quadriceps muscle and hold your knee as straight as possible

WHY: The goal of this exercise is to strengthen all the muscles in your hips and thigh in a safe and effective way when you may not be able to put full weight on your leg yet.

HOW: Start first by squeezing your entire thigh, trying to fully straighten your knee. Hold this contraction. Then either: lie on your back and lift your leg up in the air; lie on your unaffected side and lift your leg up in the air; lie on your back and lift your leg up in the air; lie on your affected side and lift your leg up in the air.

FEEL: You should feel all the muscles in your thigh and hip working to perform this exercise.

Hip Egg

• This exercise (quad set) is paramount to getting re-gaining active control your quadriceps muscles, which is the muscle on the front of your thigh. After an injury (which includes surgery), there is lots of swelling in the knee that accumulates. This swelling leads to a phenomena called arthrogenic inhibition, in which there is an inability to completely contract a muscle despite no injury to the muscle or innervating nerve. To combat this, lots of practice and developing a new “brain-body connection” is required. Follow this foolproof guide to wake your quad back up! .

✅ Laying on the ground or table and place a rolled up towel/shirt under your knee. This will act as a lever which will make it easier to activate your quadriceps muscle . ✅ Attempt to squeeze your quadriceps muscle using these cues 1⃣ Really focus on squeezing your quad. 2⃣ Sometimes touching the muscle, massaging it, or hitting it can help 3⃣ Think about moving your kneecap up and into your hip socket 4⃣ Push your knee down into the towel roll 5⃣ Lift your heel off the table 6⃣ Move your shin bone in the shape of a “J” by moving your knee down and your heel up at the same time 7⃣ Squeeze both quadriceps at the same time

HOW: Place a folded towel on the ground in front of you. Position both of your big toes on the towel with the balls of your feet still on the ground. Use a wall for balance support as you keep your knees straight and raise your heels off of the ground with your toes pushing into the towel. 

 

FEEL: You should feel a stretch in the bottom of your big toe and underneath your foot. 

 

COMPENSATION: Keep your big toe on the towel, not all of your foot. Keep your knee straight when raising your heel.