Meniscus tears

[Goldenrod]

This video about long is worth a watch:

I am at a point after 8 years of a torn meniscus I believe or longer, it was so painful I had to get a quality brace and avoid a lot of exercises.
I only started doing this a week ago (approximately) and they cover more than just meniscus tears but do focus on all the joints/muscles you would not think would impact a meniscus tear.
There are three main exercises, besides the essential stretches, that I found on a video but for some reason it is no longer up or I would have posted it.
The exercise that is missing and it is humbling if you are a guy who can squat 4 plates plus but much to my surprise, after doing a rehab routine of stretches/3-5 exercises based around the knees over toes 'guy', I was surprised how sore I was the next day.
One exercise that I would recommend and is pretty basic - you need a diagonal piece of wood or metal (you can guy them) or you can buy a large door stop that was built well. You out it on a few plates and make sure something is on the plates that is a non slippery mat like a piece of a yoga mat. You put one foot on the diagonal piece with your toes pointed down, and slowly lower your other leg down to the side or front depending on how far you want your knees to pass your toes. I had to use a stabilizing bar the first few times so I would not lose balance. Touch the foot to the ground and then push back up with the foot on the wood/metal piece. The goal is to eventually increase the height and how far you move your knee over your toes.
Simply enough and even though I have one tear, I do both legs to give one a break. I do 4 sets back to back as I am slowly increasing the height and how far I put my other leg forward.
Not going to build massive legs, but if you are like many with knee issues, it will hurt at first, but I am already able to do decent depth without any pain.
I am an advocate for training the front of your calve to exhaustion first with toe raises against a wall. They cover this in the video.
One of the last exercises, is mobility and somewhat of a workout. Put one foot on a slightly raised grip bench with a wide stretch with your leg behind you and move forward as far as you can. I soon realized I could not get my knee past my toes, but can now (just barely). The video shows how to increase the resistance and get more mobility.
Between upper body exercises, my rest period is sitting on my calves stretching the tibia muscles and sitting the same way but with my toes getting the stretch as my feet are no longer flat (top of foot down). In the video too. Even sitting with your butt as far to the ground in a comfortable position, with your legs in a sort of Sumo squat stance seems to help.
Not saying this will fix it, but I am trying this for a few months before I get surgery.
I am not much for YouTube vids, but I believe in this guys science. Go slow and see if it helps / it is with me and I am not doing any major leg building exercises for two weeks, before I start adding some in.
Just a thought and maybe not for you.
The meniscus is a vital part of the cushion in your knee so if I can get back to kicking high, sports that are out of the picture now - I figured why not. It is a common injury among weight lifters and athletes.
Just food for thought. There are a lot of free videos and info available if you look this guy up.

 

[T77]

This video about long is worth a watch:

I am at a point after 8 years of a torn meniscus I believe or longer, it was so painful I had to get a quality brace and avoid a lot of exercises.
I only started doing this a week ago (approximately) and they cover more than just meniscus tears but do focus on all the joints/muscles you would not think would impact a meniscus tear.
There are three main exercises, besides the essential stretches, that I found on a video but for some reason it is no longer up or I would have posted it.
The exercise that is missing and it is humbling if you are a guy who can squat 4 plates plus but much to my surprise, after doing a rehab routine of stretches/3-5 exercises based around the knees over toes 'guy', I was surprised how sore I was the next day.
One exercise that I would recommend and is pretty basic - you need a diagonal piece of wood or metal (you can guy them) or you can buy a large door stop that was built well. You out it on a few plates and make sure something is on the plates that is a non slippery mat like a piece of a yoga mat. You put one foot on the diagonal piece with your toes pointed down, and slowly lower your other leg down to the side or front depending on how far you want your knees to pass your toes. I had to use a stabilizing bar the first few times so I would not lose balance. Touch the foot to the ground and then push back up with the foot on the wood/metal piece. The goal is to eventually increase the height and how far you move your knee over your toes.
Simply enough and even though I have one tear, I do both legs to give one a break. I do 4 sets back to back as I am slowly increasing the height and how far I put my other leg forward.
Not going to build massive legs, but if you are like many with knee issues, it will hurt at first, but I am already able to do decent depth without any pain.
I am an advocate for training the front of your calve to exhaustion first with toe raises against a wall. They cover this in the video.
One of the last exercises, is mobility and somewhat of a workout. Put one foot on a slightly raised grip bench with a wide stretch with your leg behind you and move forward as far as you can. I soon realized I could not get my knee past my toes, but can now (just barely). The video shows how to increase the resistance and get more mobility.
Between upper body exercises, my rest period is sitting on my calves stretching the tibia muscles and sitting the same way but with my toes getting the stretch as my feet are no longer flat (top of foot down). In the video too. Even sitting with your butt as far to the ground in a comfortable position, with your legs in a sort of Sumo squat stance seems to help.
Not saying this will fix it, but I am trying this for a few months before I get surgery.
I am not much for YouTube vids, but I believe in this guys science. Go slow and see if it helps / it is with me and I am not doing any major leg building exercises for two weeks, before I start adding some in.
Just a thought and maybe not for you.
The meniscus is a vital part of the cushion in your knee so if I can get back to kicking high, sports that are out of the picture now - I figured why not. It is a common injury among weight lifters and athletes.
Just food for thought. There are a lot of free videos and info available if you look this guy up.

Love it. Mobility and joint health mean better quality of health long term. Ive been doing the sitting on your calves thing for about a year. Saw some research on it in relation south asians that naturally sit that way for long periods and its effects on mobility. Gets a good hip and overall lower body stretch and stability. Wish i could find the video as it was very convincing.

 

[Goldenrod]

For what it is worth - This is now over a week and only a few more days but worth commenting. Very humbling as I had to change my workout system. I am on a 3 day program, all upper body but each day I do one of the important stretches between my pull day exercises, for example. By the time I am done with my upper body, I am completely stretched/did the mobility exercises. It isn't really stretching - it is more mobility work other than tibia muscle and literally sitting in a sumo squat with your butt to the ground.
These exercises, at the end of each workout are using muscles I never used before. I am doing seated deadlifts (Sumo stance) to open up the adductors but it uses a lot of glutes, back, etc. You can move a lot of weight for a short movement and building strength and mobility in an area I was way too tight in. Take a 150 lb DB sit on a bench, spread your knees as wide as comfortable and do a deadlift to failure. You will feel it in your legs, glutes, back. How all this ties in to the meniscus and knee injuries I had to watch a lot of vids. I only add the 'deadlift' on pull day.
Anyway - at the end of each upper body day, I do 3 leg exercises and just started adding light DB's. It is taking a while to get the flexibility, mobility, and balance to do this.
I am skipping a full leg day for 4 weeks with heavy weight to see how much I can progress daily with the lunge and step down / tibia and calve work. I have come close to my legs giving out on me, as in you are going down and racked the squat, but never completely lost it.
It really is humbling standing on one foot on two flates which might be 3-31/2 inches off the ground and then a triangle non slip piece on top of this so your heal is probably 6 inches high but your toes are still only 3 inches high. just a simple step forward and then push back up with your leg on the triangle. Sounds easy right? I am doing sets of 25 without weight on this exercise as you can easily lose your balance and every once in a while I lean too much to the side so I do it beside a wall. Yesterday, both legs gave out completely as in total muscle failure but it was only one leg so I could use the other catch me and the wall. My knee is now significantly over my toes in the step up.
What I can say is one of two things - I am not near as sore in the knee because I am not doing heavy leg presses, belt squats, glute bridge, etc. or I am not waking up with a sore knee hobbling around as this is actually doing something.
I do not expect to grow a lot of mass on my legs from this but my flexibility, stability using muscles I did not before, and balance is getting better and my legs are often sore (DOMS) the following day. DOMS from using muscles I am not normally using.
Just an update for those who do not want to go under the knife and want to give this a try. I am still trying to find the condensed 6-7 minute video which is the main exercises / not the mobility work, but it appears to have disappeared.

 

[Goldenrod]

Just an update for anyone who has ankle, toe, knee, hip, lower back mobility issues/pain issues. I am still doing the mobility exercises between upper body sets and warming up every workout with backwards and forward walking with resistance, and now have a full leg day of mobility and strength exercises. Still not hypertrophy based but you are doing the mobility under load movements 3 times for a week so legs are getting more defined/vascular. There is a ton of good videos showing you how to do the movements.
Anyway, I stopped stretching and do mobility drills prior to hitting weights.
Not sure if I spoke about the backwards walking against resistance or walking forward against resistance. Ben Patrick's company makes decent priced equipment but I prefer resistance bands for backwards walking for 10 minutes and then 10 minutes walking forward with a decent stretch band. If my gym had sleds I would use sleds but they don't.
Keep in mind every step you take small (take small steps), you will have to walk backwards to start again over and over with bands which I prefer.

It has been just over a month doing the mobility/knees over toes exercises and about 2 weeks doing the walking with bands before I start my upper body days.
Knock on wood - the flexibility I have gained, hip, ankle, and lower back is surprising. My pain has been reduced from going under the knife to annoying when I walk my pack. I did my leg day yesterday and the pain in my knees has been reduced from a 5-7 to 1-2 during workouts, I am now doing the two main knee over toe resistance exercises to the point when I push forward with one leg, it is the calve/foot hitting my hamstring/glutes that is stopping me and my knees have progressed from parallel to about 6-8 inches past my knees.
Knees over Toes 'guy', is not a bodybuilder but the shit he can do because of flexibility and incredibly strong joints is impressive. I used to do RDL's with DB's, and this is an exercise he encourages for the posterior chain. I could never take a decent weight and touch the floor as my hamstrings, glutes/lower back would stop me. Yesterday, I touched the floor and could have kept going further with ease.
Most powerlifters do the one leg swing forward and back on each side for warm ups before squats. Another mobility exercise he recommends (I do it 3 times a week - just one set for 25 on each leg). I used to be able to front kick and side kick over 6 feet but the F'n knee started impacting my hip and it hurt too much. I have not started kicking high again yet but I am just over 6 feet tall and the one leg swing front/back & diagonal front/back is going over my head now.
This post is not meant for guys trying to build massive legs, but injuries are almost inevitable. After two months of doing this program, I will go back to traditional belt squats and leg presses for leg hypertrophy but I will never stop doing the mobility movements before I workout or the knees over toes under load at least once a week.
Seated deadlifts have helped my lower back/hip mobility/pain and groin flexibility.
The tibia stretch on the ground where you sit on your feet with your toes pointed backwards, has progressed to almost folding my upper body to the ground leaning back which is a decent ab warm up too.
Point in posting is the progress if done daily (or if you want to do the knee program/3 time per week and takes about 20 minutes) came faster than expected and the reduction in pain is considerable. There are a few excellent videos in which bodybuilders work out with him as they suffer from knee and hip pain, but push through it.