The Wall Sit is one of my favorite exercises for beginners looking to build some strength in their legs, especially their quadriceps.

Doing a wall sit is also a good temporary option when dealing with knee or low back issues that seem to be aggravated by doing regular squats.  Keep in mind though that this exercise is not a complete substitute for doing regular squats.  If you have knee or back pain, there is usually an underlying issue.  The average person should be able to perform a squat with no pain to the joints.

Primary muscles worked.

• Quadriceps

Stabilizers

• Glute Medius
• Adductors
• Hamstrings
• Abdominals

Tips:

1.  Keep a good posture when doing the wall sit.  You should have a natural curve in your lower back, shoulders should be back and down, and the back of your head should be touching the wall.

2.  Brace your abdominals and focus on your breathing.  Long deep breaths into your abdomen.  This is good practice for athletes who need to work on their breathing while holding an athletic position.

3.  Try to get your knee angle as close to 90 degrees as possible.  The higher you sit, the easier the exercise.

4.  Hold the wall sit for time.  Start small with 15 – 30 second holds and work your way up to a full minute.

In our western culture we have adopted the habit of breathing inefficiently.  We tend to overuse our upper body musculature through lifting our chest and shrugging our shoulders upon inhalation.

This type of breathing leads to the overuse and fatigue of those upper body muscles that are picking up the slack of a weak diaphragm.  This faulty pattern can then lead to pain and dysfunction in the upper back and neck.

The solution: learn intra-abdominal breathing.  A few exercises worth trying out are crocodile breaths, loaded medicine ball breaths, and the practicing of taking in deep breaths while in various postures and positions.

Tips

When inhaling focus on expanding your abdomen 3 dimensionally.

Test your ability take a quality breath by watching yourself in the mirror.  Does your chest raise, do you shrug your shoulders?

It can be hard to strengthen the diaphragm at first.  Be sure to take breaks if you get light headed from training.

Practice one of the techniques in the video below for 5 minutes each day.  Notice a change in stiffness or pain reduction in your upper back, chest or neck.

Once you become proficient in the above techniques, start strengthening your new breath in different positions.  10 strong breaths in any one of these will take you to the next level.

Your hands; they’re the most sensory rich part of your body.  The amount of nervous system feedback from your hands to your brain dwarves any other part of your body.  Your shoulders, hips, knees, feet and back don’t even come close.

When you go through the paces of everyday life, your brain relies on signals from your hands, especially when something physical is about to take place.

This is why it’s important to have a strong grip.  A tight grip will reinforce a tight posture through that nervous system feedback.  The brain knows, if the grip is taking an activity seriously, the rest of the body should follow suit.

Test this next time you workout.  Grip those weights just a little bit harder than necessary and you’ll feel much more stable in your lifts.  You can even train your grip when opening and closing doors, carrying a brief case, shaking hands or even just putting dishes away (don’t break them of course).

A good but not exhaustive list of exercises that help with grip strength.

• Dead Lifts
• Pull UPs
• Body Weight Rows
• Kettlebell Swings
• Farmers Walks
• Dumbbell Rows

You should be using a variety of these in your workouts in order to strengthen your grip while your arms are in different positions.

Ok, so last time I went over a few of the “lo-tech” strategies for dealing with knee pain so naturally today I will progress to the more “mid-tech” approach.

This means toys and tools.

Let’s take a look.

This is what we’ll call a foam roller.  It looks innocent enough doesn’t it?

This one is simply called “the stick”.  Not glamorous sounding but it will get the job done.

   And finally we have a plain old tennis ball.  Cheap and effective.

As I mentioned in the previous installment, knee pain is mostly a symptom of what is going on in the tissues above and below the joint itself.  Using these tools will help us penetrate and alleviate some of the overactive muscles associated with this type of pain.

I like self massage because it’s cheap and it allows you to do it more frequently than you would when dealing with a massage therapist.  The two types of self massage I will be going over are scanning/holding and basic full stroke massage.

1.  Scanning and Holding:  You’ll use this technique to scan your muscles for any “trigger points”.  A trigger point is essentially a knot that will prevent the muscle from performing its function normally.  You’ll scan the entire length of the muscle, once a trigger point is found, you want to hold pressure on that spot for no less than 30 seconds (this can be very painful).  Any of the three tools mentioned above can be used for this method.

2.  Full Stroke Massage:  Getting rid of trigger points can take several days or even weeks.  If you’ve eliminated all trigger points within a muscle it is then time for some tissue quality maintenance.  Here you’ll use either the stick or the foam roller to perform long smooth strokes from the top of the muscle to the bottom.  It’s best if you perform from 8 – 10 strokes.

If we’re dealing with knee pain the main muscles we’ll want to manipulate are the …

• Quadriceps
• IT Band (long sheath of fibrous tissue that runs the outside length of your leg)
• Calves/Peroneals

Quadriceps                                                      IT Band

Calves/Peroneals

Tips

• Trigger points often return.  Become aware of your trouble areas.
• Although the technique is expected to be a little painful.  Do not push yourself past your own threshold.
• The more often you perform self massage the better.  Frequency is key.
• Combine self massage before stretching for even better results.  (see first article)
• Try to incorporate some self massage before your regular workout routine.