Do you know your rower will help you get well from a complete knee alternative? You don’t must have full knee flexion to make good use of your rower and reap its well being advantages. On this submit I’ll offer you 4 rowing workout routines to do at residence to assist strengthen your knee and enhance your vary of movement, whether or not you’re early on in your restoration or months into rehab.
Advantages of Rowing for TKA Restoration
A complete knee alternative (or whole knee arthroplasty or TKA), is a standard surgical process with a excessive success price however a protracted restoration interval. Most sufferers don’t regain full use of their surgical leg till a number of months after the process. However bodily exercise, together with therapeutic train, performs an important function in knee rehabilitation, serving to construct power and curb swelling so you may get well sooner.
For those who’re on the level in your restoration the place your physician has beneficial cardio exercise—whether or not strolling, biking, or rowing—then that’s a very good signal your rehab is on track. As a non-weight-bearing, low-impact exercise, rowing specifically provides a number of full-body advantages that you may expertise as your knee heals from surgical procedure.
However don’t be too hasty to leap on the rower. One week after surgical procedure you may hardly bend your knee, not to mention sit your self in a rower. It might take a number of weeks of bodily remedy earlier than you’ll have the vary of movement or the knee flexion required for rowing.
Whether or not it’s been 6 weeks or 6 months since surgical procedure, this text is for anybody who has accomplished their spherical of bodily remedy, has attained a wholesome vary of movement with manageable ache, or has been given the okay by their doc to begin rowing. We’ll begin small, ease into the workout routines, and guarantee nothing hurts or harms your new knee. All the time hearken to your physique and reduce or altogether cease the train if it’s inflicting you ache.
Utilizing a Rower After TKA
For the primary two workout routines, you’ll use your rower without having to sit down in it simply but. These workout routines are useful wherever you’re in restoration, however particularly for these nonetheless within the first few weeks of rehab.
1. Assisted Heel Slides
This train is nice for somebody nonetheless within the early levels of their restoration (first 1–2 weeks). It’s going to make it easier to work in your vary of movement, whether or not you simply began bodily remedy or simply completed.
Place a chair over the again finish of the rower, and slide the rower seat so it’s beneath your heel. From right here, carry out heel slides, an train you could acknowledge as one thing your PT gave you to do following surgical procedure. Merely slide your heel alongside the size of the rower, ahead and again.
This motion will help you apply transferring out and in of full knee extension and turn into extra comfy in knee flexion. You’ll discover that the sliding seat makes this motion straightforward, clean, and gradual, and that’s why I like to recommend it for TKA restoration.
Goal for 20–30 repetitions at a time or set a timer for 1–2 minutes of steady heel slides. Then take a break and repeat the set 3–4 occasions a day.
2. Patellar Glides
In a wholesome knee, the patella (or kneecap) slides up the knee towards the thigh at any time when the leg is straightened. However when you’ve had a TKA or different leg damage, then your kneecap could also be too stiff or your thigh muscle mass too weak to tug the kneecap up naturally. Performing patellar glides will help launch stiffness within the knee, releasing it up so the knee can higher transfer by means of extension and flexion.
To carry out a patellar glide, lengthen your leg and place your fingers beneath your kneecap. Then slowly pull up in your kneecap so it slides in direction of your thigh. Right here’s a closeup of this movement:
You could possibly carry out a patellar glide stationary as I present above, however you would additionally make good use of the sliding function of your rower. Right here’s how that may work:
Assisted Patellar Glide
Sit on a chair located above the again finish of the rower and place your foot on the rower seat under. Carry out a patellar glide by pulling your kneecap up in direction of your thigh as you straighten your leg, gliding the seat of the rower out in entrance of you. On the terminal level of extension, when your leg is completely straight (or as straight as you may get it), make sure to contract or squeeze your quadriceps.
Though you may carry out patellar glides with out the rower, the sliding movement supplies extra help, permitting you to regulate how slowly and easily you lengthen your leg. This train will make it easier to enhance knee mobility, relieve stiffness and ache, and recruit your quadricep muscle mass with every extension.
Shoot for 15–20 reps of those patellar glides or set a timer as earlier than. I’d even advocate performing patellar glides in your nonsurgical leg that will help you get a really feel for a way a wholesome kneecap naturally glides. Then repeat the sequence 3–4 occasions per day.
Find out how to Get Into Your Rower After a TKA
Let’s take a fast pause from workout routines and think about—what’s the easiest way to get right into a rower seat when you’re recovering from a TKA? In any case, most rowers are pretty low to the bottom, requiring a bend of the knee that’s a lot larger than 90 levels.
Your sturdy chair will make it easier to right here as effectively. Transfer the chair alongside the rower subsequent to the seat, on the aspect of your good leg. Sit within the chair, going through the rower seat, and prop your surgical leg on the opposite aspect of the rower. Inserting one hand on the rower seat and the opposite in your chair, push off along with your good leg and decrease your self into the rower seat. Attempt to preserve your surgical leg at a cushty extension as you transition, avoiding any ache.
For the following train, sit on the rower along with your good leg strapped into the machine and your surgical leg resting outdoors the rower.
3. One-Leg-Out Modification
Protecting your surgical leg unstrapped and out of doors the rower will make it easier to management how a lot that knee bends as you row. Use your good leg, strapped within the rower, to push off for the drive of every stroke, and comply with by means of with the arms as regular. Your surgical leg, straightened outdoors the rower, will likely be alongside for the journey.
In time, nonetheless, you need to attempt to begin utilizing your surgical leg to push off from the bottom and assist drive the stroke. As soon as it begins to really feel stronger, inch your foot nearer to the rower in order that the knee has to bend a little bit extra. You could not be capable to bend to 90º or previous 90º for a couple of weeks, however conserving it outdoors the rower will help modify the severity of that angle.
As soon as you are feeling you may bend your knee to an analogous diploma as your good knee, then strap in your surgical leg and try rowing with each legs within the rower. The subsequent step will assist clean that transition.
4. Half-Row Modification
Now that you may strap each legs into the rower, you’re able to attempt a half-row. This system is usually self-explanatory: as an alternative of returning the handlebar all the way in which to the entrance of the rower, you’ll row to the midway level, earlier than your knees should go 90º of flexion.
Needless to say you could really feel a slight pulling sensation in your knee because it bends and straightens. However you shouldn’t really feel sharp ache doing this train; when you do, then ease up and keep additional again from the entrance of the rower.
Whenever you’re able to put the handlebar again, maintain it one hand when you use the opposite to unstrap your surgical leg and shift it outdoors the rower. Then you may slide as much as the highest of the machine and return the handlebar with out straining your surgical knee.
Adjusting Depth in your Rower
With the half-row modification, you could have whole management over how a lot your knee has to bend for every row. However you may as well tweak how a lot resistance you’ll really feel in every stroke, which could make it simpler so that you can go additional. Adjusting the resistance differs primarily based on the kind of rower you’re utilizing. A water rower reacts to the velocity of your stroke, with a sooner stroke assembly extra resistance and a slower stroke, much less. For an air-resistance rower just like the Idea 2, you’ll set the resistance manually by means of a damper.
I like utilizing a water rower like this one from Ergatta, as a result of I discover it supplies the smoothest, (quietest!) and most intuitive type of resistance. Learn my full assessment of the Ergatta right here.
On this fourth iteration of utilizing a rower for TKA restoration, don’t overdo it. Begin out with simply 1–2 minutes of half-rowing, step by step rising your period on daily basis in increments of 20–30 seconds. Finally you’ll be capable to row for five, 10, even quarter-hour at a time, bettering your cardiovascular endurance, increasing your vary of movement, and constructing muscle power all through your physique.
Abstract: Utilizing a Rower After TKA
Rowing can provide a cornucopia of well being advantages, even for somebody with knee ache. Whether or not you’ve lately recovered from a complete knee alternative or have already completed your rehabilitation, the above rowing modifications will make it easier to ease again right into a wholesome stage of health whereas minimizing ache and avoiding damage.