Building Muscular Endurance Around Your Knee After Surgery

Building not only strength in our legs after surgery is important when the knee has been operated on but, muscular endurance as well has to be added into the exercise component for total rehabilitation success.

Strength building after a surgery will help the patient regain the ability to use the knee as its designed to during our activities of daily living. The knee will strengthen quickly after surgery of course depending on the patient and, their overall prior level of function. The muscular endurance however will take more time to recover and may be the last aspect of knee surgery rehabilitation to be completed.

Building muscular endurance surrounding the knee includes concentrating on the quadriceps and the calf muscle. Both play a major part in the proper functioning of the knee. Having one or the other muscle group not up to par as far as muscular endurance is concerned will affect either your ability to walk sufficient distances or, could cause knee buckling which will result in a fall.

Building endurance can be done with several easy exercises.

1. Walking. Yes as simple as this sounds many patients after surgery need to initiate a scheduled walking program as soon as they have been medically cleared to do so. Walking not only will assist in building muscular endurance around the knees but will assist in building overall strength in your entire body. Starting a walking program is easy starting with household distances then slowly expanding the distances to outdoors.

2. Stationary Biking. Stationary biking is a great exercise for building endurance. This so happens to be one of my favorites. This is the one I used after my knee replacement surgery and I found it to pay big dividends. Stationary Biking I feel is the best exercise out there after coming off knee surgery. When starting to bike as with all the exercises you have to pace yourself. Starting with five minutes a day for instance one time a day then slowly building to a minute or two each day should do the trick.

3. Treadmills. Though I do not use them myself they are great for individuals that may need some support walking in a controlled environment. As you get stronger you can slowly increase the incline as well and that will build the endurance you require to keep your knees functioning throughout the day.

Building the endurance is simply getting the muscles that are in question to continue contracting and supporting you consistently in a repetitive manner without tiring and causing fatigue that will shut down the muscles.

Generally muscular endurance and cardiovascular exercise are mentioned in the same breath for most of us however for older individuals that may be returning from a joint replacement or fractured hip after a fall, most forms of cardiovascular work other then walking may be out of the question.

Building both strength and endurance in the surrounding muscles that encase the knees will assist you in a safer more efficient way to carry on our day to day activities.