Active people know that when their knees start to suffer, so do their workouts. Sore knees can become more than a minor inconvenience and if you were on the fast track to losing weight through exercise, this can be a major setback. The reasons for sore knees can be anything from overuse to an actual injury.

Before you decide to continue your regular workout regimen, it is always wise to consult a doctor to make sure you will not be making things worse.

What Causes Sore Knees?

There are many reasons that you may be suffering from sore knees. One of the first places to check is your shoes. There is a reason why shoe makers design shoes specific to an activity. So if you are using tennis shoes to run, for example, your body is not getting the proper support and your knees are working overtime to compensate. You also want to make sure that your shoes are not worn out which can also have a negative effect.

Perhaps you are not getting the proper nutrition. Low levels of vitamin D can lead to weakness in your lower legs. Make sure you are getting the proper amount of calcium each day to keep your bones healthy and strong.

Physical activity is one of the biggest causes of sore knees and not just for beginners. Excessive exercisers often experience knee soreness from the constant jumping and high impact activities that are part of their workouts. Uphill hiking, downhill skiing, running and tennis are just some of the many activities that put a constant burden on the knees.

If you have a chronic condition like arthritis, fibromyalgia or lupus, sore knees are going to be a persistent problem. It is a symptom of the condition that can be managed, but will always be a source of knee problems.

Finally, if you are overweight, you can expect sore knees from all the pressure the added weight causes. Even simple things like walking will be difficult on knees if weight is an issue.

Can You Exercise with Sore Knees?

Yes, but depending on the reasons why your knees are sore will determine whether or not an exercise regimen should begin or continue. If your shoes or improper nutrition are the culprits, those are easy fixes and exercise can most certainly be a part of your life. However, for those with chronic conditions or injuries, be sure to check with your doctor to make sure you will not incur any more damage by exercising.

For those who are overweight, the situation is a bit trickier since the only way to get rid of the excess weight is through exercise. This is sort of a catch twenty-two. But the bottom line is that the only way to alleviate the problem is to get rid of the fat.

What Exercises Can You Do With Sore Knees?

The first thing you need to realize is that your knees are surrounded by a variety of muscles including your quadriceps and hamstrings. By strengthening these muscles, you will give better support to your knees as well as making them healthier and stronger.

Quadriceps: One of the best exercises for sore knees is a squat as it mimics an everyday movement (bending down) and it works all of those knee-supporting muscles. Start out using only your bodyweight and slowly lower your body so your thighs are parallel to the floor, hips square and knees are not going passed your toes. Squeeze your glute and hamstring muscles when you return to a standing position.

Prisoner squats are another effective squatting exercise. Similar to a regular squat, but with a bit more of a challenge as you place your hands behind your head. For an even greater challenge, try a Y-squat with your arms extended straight out on an angle like the letter Y. Remember to focus on keeping your back straight—not rounded. If you want a little less stress on your back, try doing squats against a wall either with or without a stability ball. Place your back against a wall and lower down into a squat and hold it for a set period of time and then slowly come up. The same thing can be done using a stability ball behind you (and makes lowering a little easier).

Hamstrings: To build up the hamstrings, deadlifts, hip extensions and roll-ins are all great exercises. Try a one-legged rear deadlift by standing on one leg and lifting the other off the floor. Slowly bend forward with your one leg slightly bent while extending the other leg as you lean over. Keep your back neutral. Be sure to squeeze your hamstring muscles through both the concentric and eccentric part of the movement. Roll-ins with a stability ball are also effective. Lie down and place your heels on top of a stability ball, elevate your hips and then bring your knees into your chest as the ball rolls towards you and then push it back out. If you prefer to not use the ball, you can simply lie flat on the floor, squeeze your glutes and raise your hips off the floor. To make it more challenging for the hamstrings, raise one leg when you lift your hips up and continue with this alternating legs.

A proper warm-up with some stretching is recommended to loosen up the muscles and get them ready to work. A good stretch for the hamstrings is the inchworm. Stand up and then slowly lower your hands to the floor and then walk them out into a modified push-up position. Slowly walk your feet towards your hands without rounding your back. Once you feel the stretch, walk your hands back out again.

You do not have to let knee soreness derail your active lifestyle. By incorporating exercises to improve lower body strength—specifically the muscles that support your knees—and getting the proper nutrition, you can still reap the benefits of exercise. Most knee pain does manage to work itself out with a little patience and some hard work. The key is to modify your workouts depending on how you are feeling that day which goes for any part of your body that might be experiencing pain.

Just be sure to check with your doctor first to rule out anything that might be serious or that exercise cannot help. Once you have the green light, however, take advantage of the many workouts designed to help you lose fat without stressing your knees—or yourself.

To your success,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Creator, Turbulence Training

Try These Twenty BodyWeight Exercises for Maximum Fat Loss

Most people are under the impression that they need to join an expensive gym or invest in fancy gadgets to get an effective exercise regimen. This could not be further from the truth. Using your own bodyweight for gaining strength, improving endurance and aiding fat loss is one of the most beneficial and economical workout programs to use. And the only thing you need to invest is your time—not your money.

Bodyweight exercises challenge you more than lifting and lowering weights. Those types of exercises will certainly improve strength and help you gain muscle, but not in the same way. This is because traditional weightlifting usually focuses on just one muscle at a time. When you perform bicep curls with weights, all that is working is your biceps. The same goes for many other weightlifting exercises. A standard bench press primarily works the chest although the shoulders and the triceps get a little something out of the deal as well, but the chest is the primary beneficiary of the exercise. But you are usually lying down when you do them which means your lower body is out of the equation.

Weight training definitely has its place and rewards, but when you are talking about fat loss, you will reap more benefits from using your own bodyweight as your exercise apparatus. Whether it is a cardiovascular exercise, a strength exercise or a core exercise, every single body weight movement focuses on using more than just one single muscle group which is why it is touted as the most effective for fat loss—your entire body needs to work in unison to perform (correctly) each and every exercise. While there are dozens of body weight exercises to choose from, here is a list of twenty highly effective ones for fat loss.

Upper Body -These exercises will focus mainly on the upper body, but still rely on many supporting muscles so you get more out of it than just a strong upper body.

Standard Push-ups: No one likes them, but everyone needs them. It is the most often used exercise in any training program and with good reason. Not only does it work all of your upper body including your chest, shoulders and triceps, but your core is also working as well to keep your body from sagging. To do a push-up, place your hands on the floor directly under your shoulders. Your feet are either together (more difficult) or set wide (easier) and your back is straight—no sagging hips and no butts sticking up in the air. Slowly bend your elbows, lowering your chest to the floor and then straighten your arms back up. That is considered one rep.

If you are unable to do a standard push-up, you can always modify it by coming off your toes and going onto the part of your leg just above your kneecap (never directly on the kneecap). Just make sure all your body weight is still in your upper body and your back is still straight. Once these become less challenging, make the transition to a regular push-up by starting out with only one knee down and go on your toes with the other. Like a standard push-up, remember to keep your abs tight and your body straight.

Decline Push-ups: These are a bit more challenging than regular push-ups because your range of motion will be much greater. You are basically starting in the same position as you would a standard push-up, but now your feet are elevated on top of a high bench, chair or stair. Lower your upper body to the ground and then push through your chest, shoulder and triceps to return to start. Make sure your abdominals are tight and your back stays straight throughout the movement.

Spiderman Push-ups: You may just feel like a superhero after mastering this exercise as it pushes your upper body and abdominal muscles harder than most push-ups out there. Start in standard push-up form and as you lower your chest to the floor, bring your right knee to your right elbow. This should be done in one smooth movement. As you lift your body up, bring your leg back to start. On the next one, switch legs bringing your left knee to your left elbow. Keep your back straight, abs tight and do not rotate your hips.

Shoulder Press Push-up: Here is a push-up that lets your shoulders do all of the work. Elevate your feet on a bench as you would in an elevated push-up, but bring your hands as close to the bench as you can. You will be in an inverted V position. Legs can be bent or straight. Lower your head to the floor and then use your shoulders, chest and triceps to push yourself back up.

Pull-ups: Pull-ups are what sometimes define a person’s strength as you are using all of your bodyweight. Grab on to a high bar with an overhand grip (make sure it is sturdy enough to support your weight) and then pull your body up as high as you can and then slowly lower back down.

Inverted Rows: If regular pull-ups are too difficult, inverted rows still give you a great back workout. Grab hold of a bar that is roughly waist height and place your chest under it while extending your arms and having your legs straight out so you are on your heels. Squeeze your abs, upper back and lats to pull your chest up to the bar and then slowly lower yourself back to start. If you want to make it more difficult, use one arm instead of two. To make it less challenging, keep your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor.

Lower Body – Your lower body has many active muscles that you use throughout the day. Just walking alone utilizes your hamstrings, quadriceps, glutes and calves. For this reason, working your lower body keeps these muscles strong so they can continue to support your daily movements as well as aiding in fat loss.

Squat: This is a lower body staple as it is the most basic of all the lower body exercises. With your feet a little more than shoulder width apart, abs tight, glutes squeezed and toes facing front, lower your body to the ground as far as you can while keeping your back straight and not allowing your knees to go beyond your toes. The best way to remember to do this exercise correctly is to push your hips back as if you want your butt to tap the top of a chair behind you. Most importantly, never round or arch your back—always keep it neutral. Push through your glutes, hamstrings and quadriceps to return to your starting position.

Prisoner Squat: This exercise is just like a regular squat but instead of letting your arms hang at your sides, place your hands behind your head. By doing this, you take out some of the momentum that you may find yourself using on a regular squat. You are also adding some weight by placing your hands above your body. Again, keep the same perfect form that you would in a traditional squat.

Y Squat: The Y squat is similar to the prisoner squat but your arms will be extended up and out forming a Y rather than behind your head. Keep your upper back and shoulders tensed, push your hips back and lower as far down as you can watching that your knees do not pass your toes and that your back does not round. Push through those glutes, quadriceps and hamstrings to return to your starting position.

Hip Extensions: Your hamstrings are one of the most important muscles of your leg. And just because you cannot see them does not mean they should not be worked. Hip extensions are a common and useful exercise for improving hamstring strength. Lie on the floor with your feet flat and knees bent. Squeeze your glutes and lift your hips off the floor. Make sure to not use your hips to lift. Hold the hips up for a second before lowering them back down so they are just above the floor but not touching it. You can make this more difficult by extending one leg up and out while you lift your hips.

Forward Lunge: Lunges are great exercises and highly effective when done correctly. To begin, stand with your feet shoulder width apart. Take a large step forward with your right leg and then bend that leg towards the ground while you are on your toes of your left foot. Make sure that your left knee also bends down to the floor. Your goal is to get your right thigh parallel to the ground without extending your knee passed your toes on the right leg. Do not bend over with your upper body. Keep your chest tall and your abs tight. To return to your starting position, push off the heel of your right foot back to a standing position. Switch legs after you completed a set on one side or you can alternate sides. The key is to remember to step forward and down rather than forward and forward.

Walking Lunge: Now that you mastered a forward lunge, you can add some movement to it. Rather than standing in one place and bringing your forward leg back to start, stay there and bring your other leg forward as if you were taking giant lunging steps.

Reverse Lunge: Who says you cannot go backwards when you lunge? This time from your starting position you want to take a step behind you with your leg and then lowering yourself to the ground as you would in a forward lunge only you are taking a step back rather than forward. The same rules apply—watch your front knee, bend the back knee to the floor and keep your chest up.

Cardiovascular Exercises -No fat loss workout is complete without some cardiovascular exercise. Here is where you will really elevate your heart rate and push your body to the max.

Jumping Jacks: Still an oldie but goody, jumping jacks are great as a warm-up exercise or as part of your fat loss routine. Stand straight with your arms at your sides. Jump your feet out wide while bringing your arms overhead and then return to start. Make sure you are on the balls of your feet when you do jumping jacks.

Burpees: Whether you love them or hate them, burpees will never fail you when it comes to cardiovascular exercise. Start in a standing position and then lower down so your knees are bent and your hands are on the floor. Kick your legs straight out behind you so you are in a standard push-up position and then jump them back in to your chest and then stand up. For a cardiovascular bonus, you can add a jump on the way back up to standing.

Step-ups: Here is a cardiovascular exercise disguised as a lower body one since your lower body will no doubt be working just as hard as your heart. Find a six-inch high step or bench to start and stand in front of it. Use your right leg and step up onto the bench with your left foot still on the floor. Now squeeze your glutes and push through your right foot to bring the left leg up. Hold it for a second and then lower back down. Do a set on the right leg before switching to the left. As this exercise becomes easier, start using a higher step or bench.

Mountain Climbers: This exercise works just about everything—your abs, your upper body, your lower body and your heart. Begin in a standard push-up position with your hands and shoulders lined up. Contract your abs and pull your right knee in towards your chest without letting your butt pop up or sag. Also, do not tap your toes to the floor when you bring your knee in. Return your right leg back to start and then do the same thing with the other leg and keep alternating. The faster you go, the higher your heart rate will get and your abs will feel it too.

Core Exercises -You do not want to lose all the fat and still have a big belly which is why any good fat loss workout incorporates working your abdominal muscles.

Plank: Lie down facing the floor and then come up onto your forearms making sure your elbows and shoulders are lined up, your back and body is straight and you are on your toes. Keep your abs tight and hold this position for as long as you can. For a modification, come down to a kneeling position rather than staying on your toes.

Side Plank: Similar to a plank, but instead of being on both forearms and facing down, you are on one forearm and facing the side. Lift your hips off the floor and hold the contraction in your obliques and abs. Switch sides once you are done. Again, you can modify this by keeping the knee of the bottom leg on the floor.

Knee-up: Here is where your abs will certainly feel the burn. Grab hold of a bar overhead and let your body hang down. Now slowly lift your knees up towards your chest. Make sure to use your abs to bring the knees up and not your hips. Lower your knees back down making sure you maintain a slow pace so your body does not rock back and forth.

Putting it All Together – The best way to make the most out of all of these exercises is to use them as part of a circuit or interval training program. You can mix it up any way you like. For example, you can do one upper body exercise, one lower body exercise, one core exercise and one cardiovascular exercise with no rest between. When you are done, take a few seconds to catch your breath and do it all over again. Try to get in six to eight circuits. The nice part is there are so many exercises to mix and match that you can have a different workout every time. This helps to keep you motivated and conquer boredom which is often a common reason people stop exercising.

Do not forget to always make sure you have proper form with every exercise and consider using the modifications if you cannot do them the more advanced way. It is always better to do them correctly in a modified way rather than struggling through an exercise that you are unable to do at all. Not to mention, you run the risk of injury if you perform exercises incorrectly.

You also do not want to forget about proper nutrition. Eating healthy and smart is part of any fat loss program and it will help you see results from your workouts even faster. Your body needs energy for your training so provide it with the proper fuel so you can go all out. And in no time, you will be winning the battle of the bulge with these bodyweight exercises.

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Certified Turbulence Trainer

This week I was interviewed by my friend Greg who used to work at Men’s Health. He wanted my BEST workout advice for common fat loss problems…

(Next week I’ll be back with a reader QnA.)

Greg: Thanks again for the tips for the Shape piece last week. I LOVED the backup exercises tip, and featured it pretty prominently. The story looks great, and should be on their site soon.

Now I’m working on a piece for Livestrong that could benefit from your voice.

CRAIG BALLANTYNE : Happy to help.

Greg: Ok, first question. When it comes to fat loss, what’s the most common mistake you see people making in regards to *nutrition*? Why is it a mistake and what’s the best course of action?

CRAIG BALLANTYNE: Greg, the answer is harsh, but true. Too many people LIE to themselves about how compliant they are with their nutrition.

Granted, most people are ‘good’ most of the day, but almost every day people screw up and then forget about the screw up. But then they struggle and can’t figure out why they can’t overcome a plateau.

So I work with them and we drill down into their daily diet, and suddenly, A-ha, the truth is revealed. They mention something they are eating on a regular basis that is way off their plan.

The solution is to stop lying…and you do that with a food journal. Research shows that people who use a food journal get better results than those who don’t.

And in the digital age, another study found that taking a picture of what you eat at every meal also helps.

For extra points, create a blog or workout journal on a weight loss forum and post your meals there. You’ll be less tempted to cheat when it means lying to the world.

Greg: Great, now when it comes to fat loss, what’s the most common mistake you see people making in regards to *fitness and their workouts*? Why is it a mistake? What’s the best course of action?

CRAIG BALLANTYNE: The biggest mistake is STILL relying on long, slow, boring cardio to lose fat (hard to believe after all the info that is out there).

You cannot out-cardio a bad diet (although you might be able to out-metabolic resistance train or out-interval a bad diet).

That’s what this TT MRT program is for – rapid results

Slow cardio burns very few calories, doesn’t appear to increase post-workout calorie burning, and doesn’t build muscle – so your body will never change for the better.

The best thing to do is metabolic resistance training, 3-4 days per week, where you do supersets and circuits of intense, total body exercises, with incomplete recovery so you get a lot of work done in a short amount of time.

That’s how you change your body, look sexy, and get fit.

Greg: Okay, and finally, regardless of subject matter, what do you consider to be your all-time favorite fitness tip?

Answer: You can get a great workout, without exaggeration, in 10 minutes with supersets of two multi-muscle exercises, like pairing squats with pullups and going back and forth with no rest in 10 minutes.

You can do one easy warm-up set at 25% intensity, then a second warm-up set at 75% intensity, and then two really good sets of 8-10 reps using a weight that you can regularly lift for 10 repetitions.

Another superset option is deadlifts paired with a pressing movement, such as pushups, db chest press, or shoulder press. This would be better than 50% of the workouts you see done in a commercial gym.

You’ll get more than 50%, and maybe even up to 75% of the results that you would get from a full 30-minute workout. Strength training is efficient and you get a lot of results from not a lot of work. Same with fat burning intervals.

This is great news for all busy people. However, if you have time for full fat burning workouts, here’s the most popular program I created in 2011

Back with another fat loss blueprint for you next week,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Certified Turbulence Trainer

PS – Happy New Year!

We’ll be back next week to make 2012 your best year ever.

In part 1, Jason Ferruggia shared with us a few lessons from his recent Renegade seminar.

Today, this fitness expert talks about the countless mobility drills and flexibility exercises that help his clients become a better athlete.

*********************

CRAIG BALLANTYNE: All right, nice.  Tell us a little bit about the seminar you did, and how that went down.

JAY FERRUGGIA: I explained it more in detail, because we don’t have much time obviously, all the changes that I’ve made this year and stuff like that, and mistakes, whatnot.  And then basically we had about 20 people fly in from all over the country and Canada.

Most of it was hands-on, because I didn’t want to make it a thing where I was standing there speaking for hours on end.  So we went through all this stuff.  We spent a good hour or so on mobility drills.  And a lot of people found it very eye-opening.  Some people said it was their favorite part just because I think most of us, everyone wants to go in and rest.  Who wants to do mobility?  But that’s the kind of stuff that’s probably the most important stuff.

I used examples of people in the room and myself.  If we were going to start playing a sport or get a tryout with a team right now, there are a lot of guys there that compete in strongman and they’re a lot stronger than I’ve ever been.  And even myself, what would help the most?  Some of these guys could barely touch their knees.  So that mobility and flexibility would help them become a better athlete.  And even me really, that would make a bigger difference for me.  It has made a bigger difference for me than just getting stronger at this point.

So we went all through the benefits of mobility and tons of mobility drills from head to toe.  We did every joint.  We probably did a couple different drills for every joint, and when to do them and whatnot and the optimum volume.  We did the same thing with flexibility.  A couple different unique ways of stretching.  Kind of a stretch wave type deal that Ann Fredericks teaches, and went through some PNF stuff, some static stuff, when to do those.  So we spent a good hour or so on that as well.

Let me think what else we did here.  And then basically we did all the big lifts, because a lot of those guys were trainers so they need to know how to coach the bench, even though we don’t tend to use the flat bench press a lot.  We went through the whole setup and all that.  And then just basically all upper and lower body power exercises, plyo pushups, medicine ball stuff, jumps, a number of those.  And then assistance work and progressions on some bodyweight exercises.  Like progressions for one-arm pushups, front levers, stuff like that.

CRAIG BALLANTYNE:  So that seminar was in Jersey, right?  But you live out in California now.  Where are you training out there?

JAY FERRUGGIA: A lot of days I actually train at the rings, Muscle Beach.  And then there’s another gym nearby, which is pretty good.  It has most stuff.  And then we live about a block or so from Gold’s Venice, which Jen is training there now.  I might go there for a little bit.  That will just be to hold me over until we eventually get a place going out here, which I guess will be sometime next year.

CRAIG BALLANTYNE:  And Jen is still stronger, fitter and better looking than you.

JAY FERRUGGIA: Yeah, everyone is.

CRAIG BALLANTYNE:  So all this stuff you learned.  And you got smarter this year.  Have you put together some programs at all this year, some new good stuff?

JAY FERRUGGIA: Yeah.  Uncaged actually did a very popular program, which has a lot of the progressions that I was talking about.  I was more of a West side guy back in the days.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Obviously, you can’t argue with the results.  But just for the clientele I had and the certain things I wanted to do, we kind of backed off always working up to a heavy one RM.  But now I cycle the most strength work, the big exercises, a little differently.  So we have that.   Uncaged has that kind of progression in there, as well as there’s probably about three to five different unique bodyweight exercises that take you through a 16-week progression on those.

First of all, my membership group has been changing.  Not changing, but bringing out more and more new programs.  We’re going to have a new one coming up here in two weeks, January 1st, which will incorporate all the kind of stuff we just discussed with unique periodization schemes and progressions and all that.

Join us in part 3, where Jason will give an example of his training techniques.

Yours in Health,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, M.Sc.
Certified Turbulence Trainer