The Best Cardio Exercises for Bad Knees

Getting healthy is a daunting task and with bad knees, it can seem nearly impossible to do any cardio at all. Generally, women have more problems with their knees than men. The University of California says this is due to minor differences in the way our bodies are built, ladies tending to have wider hips, causing additional stress.

Kettlebell swings are one of the best options out there that aren’t a machine. Kettlebells strengthen the glutes, lower back, and hamstrings while sparing the knees. Proper hip hinging is crucial for anyone wanting to be more athletic, and this exercise does a great job of teaching the movement pattern. Try starting out with twenty-five or thirty pound kettlebells and work your way up to heavier weights. Three to five sets of 20-40 reps should be sufficient. Remember to keep your back flat and push your butt backwards when you go down and thrust hips forward when coming up. Your arms are simply hooks and all the power is generated by hip extension. DO NOT SQUAT DOWN, it’s bad form and you will get injured.

Another machine-free option is battling ropes. These ropes are 30 to 40 feet long and most gyms have one or two sets sitting around, somewhere. Loop one end around an immovable object and pull out the slack, making both ends equal. Make sure you have a stopwatch and use it to do timed rounds. Twenty seconds is typically brutally hard for most people. After those twenty seconds, rest for another twenty to sixty seconds before continuing on to the next set.

You can do a few different exercises, such as in and out waves – rapidly and rhythmically move your arms out and away from your body, then bring them back together, creating waves with the rope. Rope slams are fast and aggressive. Grab both ends of the rope and slam it up and down quickly and with a lot of force. Another form of waves are up and down, moving rapidly and creating waves. You can also do alternate waves – when one arm goes up, the other goes down.

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