Preventing knee injuries?

I was just reading about blowing knees out. I was wondering if there is any kind of exercise or stretch that can prevent this? I have gained a bit of weight in the last couple years, and I am worried this summer that the extra weight may stress my knees more. Anyone know anything on this?

A good leg work out should keep them nice and strong but won't prevent it from happening 100%. One thing that people forget is to work the hamstrings, this is straight from my Orthopedist, most ACL tears result from weak hams. A good stretch for these is to ly on the floor near the wall on your back with your legs going up the wall.

stretch your quads, hams, calves, and glutes. All of those muscles work together to help stabilize the knee. There are also a handful of much smaller muscle groups that work to stabilize the knee as well. You can strengthen those by doing things like lunges, one-legged unweighted squats, wall sits, wall squats with a ball. Working the large muscle groups will also help, squats, calf-raises, etc. Also getting on a balance trainer like an Indo board will help too. One way to test the stability of your knee and ankle stabilizer muscles is stand on one foot, and close your eyes. If you can do that with your eyes closed for a minute, you're pretty good.

Riding a stationary bike, stair stepper, or doing an elliptical machine will also help.

In Delta Sessions 2, it shows Mike Schwenne doing squat like things while standing on one of those big work out balls. That would exude some serious balance and strong stabilizer muscles.

google proprioception.

Stance has alot to do with it too. I saw a few injuries snowboarding and most of the time the guys landed an air straight-legged.

Keep that knee bent athletic stance when landing, Your knees will bend instead of buckling to the sides.

Strong legs and flexibility are still the big keys though.

An orthopedic surgeon friend of my family told me that the only to prevent a knee injury is to not wakeboard, snowboard, ski, etc. To a certain extent I believe him. The knee is a very poorly designed joint.

what's that thing called? we used to land on it all the time back in the day....oh yeah...the 2nd wake.

While there is no way to "prevent" a knee injury, there is plenty you can do to lessen the chances. Increased leg strength and flexibility will do wonders. Ride a bike or some other type of low impact exercise and do yoga or pilates for example.

Yeah I've been meeting with a trainer this last week trying to refine my workouts to help my knees. Essentially it comes down to working the small stabilizer muscles and training them to fire and keep it all together. My knees were flying all around and in a week of concentrated focus on using my hams and ass the knee is already a lot more stable. Anytime I stand while lifting any weights I do it on the balance bubble disks, my balance and stabilizing muscles have gotten so much better!

hahahahahahahaahhaahahaah

charles that funny as hell.

landing on the second wake is sooo 90's

Now maybe the solution is to put a foil on the wakeboard- increased pop with softer landings.....

Andy - you're a funny cat. The only way to prevent getting killed in a car accident, is to not get in a car.

Big Heavy - that would help a ton. I'm gonna start doing that.

Thane--

my point exactly

While we are on the subject of knee injuries. . . I'm curious, do most knee injuries come from repetitive abuse(i.e. many landings from big jumps day after day) and your knees get worn down, or one bad landing(i.e. you land straight legged and hyper-extend your knee).

I would say both of those reasons. If you talk to anybody that works on their knees for a living they will tell you that they are shot just from years of being on them, a good example is a catcher in major league baseball or tile setters.

The problem is mainly lack of strength (glutes, hams quad, low back). Jumping impact is about 4 times bodyweight 150lb athlete the force equals about 600lbs. Think about the impact the muscles have to overcome from 10 to 15 feet in the air, this requires tons of eccentric strength to decelerate upon landing. Squating, lunges, deadlifts, deceleration drops, plyos(weighted and non weighted) along with strengthening the stabilizers like Big Heavy mentioned.
Although before you add balance discs you should be able to control your body on a flat stable surface before you progress. Gotta get back to work, finish up more later.

Thane Dogg,

I tried the balancing on one foot trick with my eyes closed. That's difficult. I got much better at it after several attempts however you can feel it work and burn the muscles in the lower leg/shin area. Gettin' close to a minute. This has gotta help for those jumps when I close my eyes!

Ya, I heard the balancing on one foot is great for ankle strength too. I have had problems with rolling my ankles in other sports. When I tried that exercise a week or two after I hurt one ankle, it was almost impossible for me to do. My ankle was just shaking, I couldnt believe how hard it worked it out.