Effective Vastus Medialis Exercises

You seem to be under the impression that /fit/ knows anything about lifting.

You'd be better off going to reddit

>>35143842

I know people who swear by using just the top 30 degrees or so of the leg extension machine for high reps as a means of helping knee tracking issues.

But I have no idea if it'll work or even be a good idea in your case.

You're asking something rather specific, try a physical therapist, preferably one with a specialty in knee or general joint recovery.

>>35143914
OP here: I have already had an MRI scan done on my left knee (which showed no structural damage to either bone or cartilage) and I've been to a physical therapist who did work on the knees with me for a bit. However, the results after 6 months are rather meagre which is why I decided to ask this question here as it may be assumed that in a population of people engaging in athletic activity as large as the one inhabiting /fit/ there would be people who have also struggled with PFPS (especially considering that PFPS and patellar maltracking is the cause of about 25% of all knee pain in athletes).

I understand that a physical therapist is the person to consult, but I was hoping for some personal experience from those who have had this problem themselves, rather than from someone who has administered the treatment.

Cheers!

I've answered this question on here before. Weird. Same person?

Anyways, I never got to the injury correction part of a kinesiology (sports medicine focus) degree, nor do I have personal experience with this stuff, especially not something as specific as PFPS. Sorry.

I can't help but think that for nearly any knee development issues someone would want to do a normal squat routine building up from low weights to bring all the parts of your quadriceps and hamstrings into balance to maximize knee stability. But that's probably just bro-science.

Anyways, a couple resources I've seen tell me that a high bar squat with the "frog" stance (heels closer than shoulder width, toes outward) hits the medialis hard.

Front squats
Hack squats
Sissy squats

Try to pause at the bottom to make the exercise harder. Utilizing lighter weight will be your friend here.

>>35144153
Generally speaking back squats are worse for the knee joint than front squats.

>>35143842
If you can do very deep front squats that's honestly your best bet.
Other than that I know a lot of people use Step-ups. If you do these it's important to concentrate on using the right muscles i.e. try to limit involvement of the hip musculature, and avoid using the opposing leg to "jump" with.

Of course, no matter what approach you choose, it is critical that you still adhere to the fundamental principles of training, such as Progressive Overload.

>>35144322
How so?

>>35144419
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/19002072/

>>35144450

A rather useless link, considering 90% of /fit/ isn't going to be able to read the actual study.

>>35144460
Yeah. The abstract is honestly pretty interesting here; but in college I just read too many papers where the abstract actually contradicted the actual data (or, more typically, the abstract had the arbitrary conjectures and preferences of the writer, while the data had zero support for that conclusion).