The knees are often overlooked when men and women want to change certain parts of their bodies. But when you come to think about it, your knees have crucial roles to play in your physical and mental health, from walking, running and jumping to boosting your confidence in maintaining a youthful look.
Keeping your knees looking and feeling great should then be among your priorities, too. You can start by losing the extra weight and/or sagging skin around your knees, and here are ways that we believe are effective. We have to emphasize, nonetheless, that there’s no specific method for targeting excess fat around the knees, just effective ways to make your knees leaner yet stronger.
Lose Excess Body Weight
If you think that your knees are too fat resulting in a knobby look, you should start with losing weight overall. When you lose weight, your knee area will also slim down and you can start on exercises to strengthen them.
This is also true, by the way, when you want to achieve a lean and mean abdomen with an enviable six-pack. You can’t achieve it with thousands of crunches, sit-up and the like when your body still hasn’t lost its excess weight. Once you achieve your ideal weight, you can adopt targeted exercises for the abdomen and get your sex-pack abs in time.
Perform the Right Exercises
Keep in mind that your knees act as a pivot upon which your legs and thighs move around. You should then strengthen your knees by performing certain exercises. The good news: Most, if not all, of these exercises also benefit the entire body and its healthy functioning.
- Running or jogging demand more of your legs and knees so they become leaner and stronger in time.
- Riding a bike is a low-impact exercise recommended for people who have knee-related issues; running and jumping puts undue strain on the knees due to the ground-to-leg impact with each step. Plus, it’s a great exercise for toning the legs including the quads, hamstrings and calves. You can ride either a regular bike or a stationary bike depending on the weather, your schedule and preference as well as use a bike for high-intensity interval training and for long-distance training.
- Doing lunges since these target the quadriceps. When you strengthen your quads, you’re also toning your legs as well as your knees and glutes. You can perform traditional lunges or use dumbbells for extra resistance or increase your reps.
Other great exercises for the knees in particular and the legs in general are squats, jumping rope and brisk walking.
Aside from these exercises, you should also consume more healthy foods like whole grains, fish, nuts and seeds, legumes, and fruits and vegetables. These foods make for a healthy mind and body and, thus, for healthy knees.
Consider Plastic Surgery
What if despite the abovementioned measures your knees aren’t still lean and mean? You may want to consider non-invasive options offered by the likes of Athenix Body Sculpting or CoolSculpting. You will, of course, spend money on these methods but you will likely see the results within a short period so it’s well worth it.
These options include liposuction, cryolipolysis and laser therapy, as well as ultrasound and radiofrequency therapy. You should discuss the pros and cons of each of these options with a plastic surgeon at a reliable clinic before making your decision. You have to consider the monetary costs, too, since it will have a significant impact on your decision.
But even when one of these methods resulted in lean and mean knees, you should still adopt sensible measures for maintaining knee health. If you gain weight, for example, the fat around your knees will most likely return so the cryolipolysis sessions may have been in vain. The combination of healthy lifestyle habits combined with maintenance sessions with your choice of non-invasive plastic surgery on the knees should do the trick.
We suggest these ways in keeping your knees in optimum condition, both in form and function.
- Always protect your knees during exercise. Perform warm-up and cool-down exercises for this reason.
- Wear the right type of shoes for the activity, especially exercise, you’re doing. Cross trainers are for circuit training, running shoes for jogging, and bowling shoes for bowling, among others. While you’re at it, be sure that your shoes fit well and, if you’re a woman, give your feet a rest from the stilettos and high heels.
- Avoid high-impact exercises on hard surfaces, if possible, since these can increase the stress on your knees. Instead of jogging on pavement, for example, you may want to consider running on an oval track with its softer surface.
When your knees hurt for any reason, especially during exercise, you should stop and rest. You may want to see a doctor, too, if the pain persists for a few days. You may have an underlying medical condition that needs attention, perhaps treatment lest your knees become worse than they are already.
