7 Tips on How to Recover from Your Knee Injury

Suffering a knee injury can be a devastating experience. Knee injuries require meticulous attention to give you the best chance of making a full recovery. While recovering from a knee injury, it’s common to frustrate about not being able to take part in your favorite activities. However, rest is an essential part of bringing your knee back to 100%. 

An important part of recovering from your knee injury involves regular physiotherapy sessions. In addition, there are numerous activities and habits that you should be mindful of. Here’s a guide on how to recover from your knee injury and return to your normal activities.

How to Recover from Your Knee Injury

1. Assess the severity of your injury

One of the most important steps towards a successful recovery is being realistic with the severity of your injury. This can be quite difficult if you’re used to leading an active lifestyle and moving around all the time. However, it’s critical to remember that rest is a vital part of the healing process. 

Without proper rest, your chances of delaying your recovery or suffering another injury increase dramatically. Even when you stop experiencing pain, it’s important to stick to your recovery plan and give your body enough time to fully heal your knee. 

Running too soon on a bum knee can exacerbate tissue damage and lead to further pain and delayed recovery. While you may be inclined to push through the pain to accelerate your recovery, this approach will only further delay your journey back to 100% health. Taking the time to assess the severity of your injury will help you develop a realistic timeline for when you can expect to return to regular activities.

2. Invest in protective gear

One of the best ways to protect your knee during recovery is to use protective gear. Investing in protective knee braces is a great way to prevent potentially aggravating your injury while walking or standing up. Wearing a brace limits the range of motion on your knee, which prevents sudden movements that are unnatural for your recovering knee. 

While recovering, a knee brace will help you regain your balance and feel more confident while standing. Wearing proper shoes is another form of protective gear that will help your recovering knee. Look for shoes that absorb shock and put less stress on your knees. Investing in shoes designed for your favorite physical activities will also lower your chance of injury.

3. Don’t neglect your diet

Surprisingly, your diet plays an important role in your ability to recover from a knee injury. Your diet directly impacts your body’s ability to produce the necessary immune response to help heal your knee. Fruits and vegetables are rich in a variety of minerals and vitamin C, which helps lower inflammation in your body. High-quality meat, shellfish, and nuts are high in zinc, an important mineral for the recovery process. 

Eating high-quality food reduces inflammation, enhances immune functions, and increases healing function in your body. Staying hydrated is also another vital part of giving your body every resource possible to heal your knee injury.

4. Find ways to keep swelling down

Finding ways to control swelling is essential for accelerating the healing process. Using ice, compression, and heat in combination will help keep your knee comfortable and blood circulating. After your physical therapy exercises, it’s important to ice your knee to reduce inflammation and allow your body to reap the full benefits of the physiotherapy exercises.

5. Slowly incorporate a range of motion into your recovery

After staying off your knee for a few weeks, you can slowly start adding a range of motion to your daily exercises. Adding more movements that increase the range of motion of your knee helps strengthen supportive muscles and ligaments. Wait until your knee is recovered enough for you to put weight on it without pain. 

At this stage, you can use hip abductions, bridges, hamstring curls, and lunges to build your strength back slowly. Over time, you can add in backward lunges and jogging sideways to get your knee comfortable moving in all directions.

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6. Yoga

Yoga and stretching help your muscles recover while increasing flexibility. Yoga is great for increasing circulation throughout your body which helps your knee recover faster. Avoid advanced poses like the lotus when recovering from your knee injury. 

Instead, focus on poses that stretch your hamstrings and your hip flexors. While doing yoga, you can also do exercises to help strengthen your core which takes additional pressure off your knees.

7. Make physical therapy exercises part of your routine

Learning how to recover from knee injury is a difficult exercise in patience. Physical therapy is a proven technique you can use to enhance the recovery process. Physical therapy works best when done on a regular basis instead of only doing the exercises when you feel weakness. 

As an example, you can start your days with a physical therapy session and commit to doing another session before bed. Consistently practicing physical therapy will strengthen the muscles around your knee and help you make a full recovery. 

Once the swelling and pain go down in your knee, physical therapy is an important part of rebuilding strength and flexibility. Stay patient and disciplined with your physical therapy exercises. Over time, the exercises will help restore your full range of motion and mitigate the long-term effects of your knee injury.

This was it for today, I hope you have found this healthy advice to Recover from Your Knee Injury helpful.

Have a Good Day!