Your knees are painful. You’re suffering a dull ache all the time, and when you move them – well, agony isn’t the word you’d use to describe the pain you feel. It’s like World War 3 burst into life around your kneecap.
You know you need to work on your knee strength to reduce the pain. But therein lies the problem. The pain when you move stops you from doing the exercise you need. If only there were an exercise regime that didn’t involve moving… and pigs might fly, right?
No heavyweights, no movement, but stronger knees? What is this wizardry?
Isometric exercise is designed to help strengthen muscle groups with minimal movement or no movement at all. Most weight lifting exercises include an isometric component - like the brief pause between the lowering and lifting of a weight during a squat (which is called the isometric phase).
That moment when nothing is moving – the gap between the eccentric and concentric phases of the exercise. This is what we call the isometric phase, and even though you’re not moving, your muscles are still working hard. Don’t believe us? Do a 30-second forearm plank and try to deny that you feel your body working!
Firstly, it’s because the knee joint functions can be affected by the strength of the quadriceps muscles. Isometric exercises are designed to strengthen the thigh muscles without involving much movement around the knee joint. Learning to better contract your quadriceps in painful ranges of motion can have a protective effect on your knee joint.
Also, isometric exercises work to develop better coordination between your nervous system and your muscles. This helps your muscles to work more efficiently, potentially improving performance and reducing pain. It also helps your muscles to work more effectively for longer. This helps you to maintain rhythm and stability when training with weights, such as the kettlebell side swing.
We use isometric exercises because they strengthen muscles, improve work capacity and help our clients build tolerance to new and uncomfortable positions - all while placing minimal stress on the joint. Here are seven such exercises:
The split squat hover is a great isometric exercise for training the quadriceps. It is performed by starting in a half-kneeling position (one knee down on the floor, one knee in front) and hovering the back knee. This exercise should feel like a challenge to the quads on both legs, but the back quad in particular.