Strengthen Your Quads With These Knee Extension Exercises | Men’s Health Muscle - video Dailymotion

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Strengthen Knee Extensions and Stability | Men’s Health Muscle

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00:00 Do you want to strengthen your quadriceps muscle and help stabilize your knee joint?

00:03 Follow along with me as I show you my favorite knee extension exercises.

00:07 Hi, I'm Daniel Giordano, Doctor of Physical Therapy, Certified Strength Conditioning Specialist

00:17 at Bespoke Treatments.

00:18 Today, we're going to show you how to strengthen your quadriceps with a series of knee extension

00:22 exercises.

00:23 Your quadriceps is a group of four muscles that attach from your hip to your knee joint.

00:29 They consist of your rectus femoris muscle, your vastus intermedius, vastus medialis,

00:35 and vastus lateralis.

00:36 All of these muscles come together to help with knee extension or straightening out of

00:41 your knee.

00:42 Whether you're running or squatting, these knee extension exercises will help reinforce

00:47 the knee and stabilize the joint.

00:49 The first exercise we're going to do is the basic knee extension exercise.

00:53 So Von rolled up a towel, put it right underneath his knee joint to help increase that range

00:58 of motion of that knee joint.

00:59 Then what he's going to do is just straighten out that leg and really try to flex that quad.

01:04 So he's going to connect his brain to his quad to get more muscle fiber engagement,

01:09 hold it for a couple seconds, come back down, and then repeat.

01:12 I like to perform these for three sets of 10 repetitions to really get that quadriceps

01:16 ready and contracting.

01:18 The next exercise in the series is the box squat.

01:21 So we're going to start standing, holding the dumbbell or kettlebell right in front

01:25 of your chest, keeping it high, and then we're going to sit down to that box.

01:30 Paws at the bottom, come up, and then tighten those quads on the way up.

01:34 So he's going to work on really straightening the knee out.

01:37 It's a great way to get those quadriceps firing, okay, and really working on the straightening

01:42 of that knee joint.

01:43 I like to perform these for three sets of 10 reps, going at a slow and easy pace to

01:49 really get all that muscle fiber recruitment in there.

01:52 So when you stand up, really make sure that you tighten that quad up and straighten the

01:55 leg out so you get a nice contraction to that quad to keep those quadriceps getting stronger.

02:00 The next exercise in this series is a step up.

02:02 Von's going to put his foot up on a box, bench, something that's sturdy and stable.

02:07 He's going to press through that foot, stand up, straighten that leg out, okay, really

02:12 get that quadriceps contracting, and then come down slowly, good, and then back up.

02:18 So this is a great way to work on knee extension, really straightening that leg out.

02:22 I like to perform three sets of 10 repetitions.

02:25 If you want to increase the difficulty of this exercise, add a weight to increase the

02:29 load of the exercise and the intensity of the exercise to make it more challenging.

02:34 But overall, just make sure you're pushing through the foot, contracting the quad, getting

02:38 a full straightening of the knee, and then controlling your way down.

02:42 The next exercise in this series is a terminal knee extension using a long loop in.

02:47 So you're going to anchor that long loop band on something that's solid that's not going

02:51 to move.

02:52 Von's going to take a step back so that he feels the resistance from that long loop band.

02:57 Then all he's going to do is just straighten that leg, bend it, and then straighten that

03:01 leg out, creating a contraction through that quadriceps muscle, really working on that

03:06 terminal knee extension or the last and final degrees of your knee extension to get that

03:11 knee as straight as it can be.

03:14 Perform these three sets of 10 repetitions.

03:17 If you want to increase the intensity, get a thicker band, or just walk a little further

03:22 away from the anchor point so that band has more resistance on it.

03:27 Thank you for following along with me today for these knee extension exercises.

03:30 Remember, if you want to stabilize your knee and reinforce the knee joint, add these into

03:35 your program to help improve the quadriceps strength.

03:37 (upbeat music)

Strengthen Your Quads With These Knee Extension Exercises | Men’s Health Muscle

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