3 Simple Exercises for Stronger, More Stable Knees

Strong knees aren't just for athletes. These three simple exercises can help protect your joints during everyday activities, from climbing stairs to squatting down.

Your knees need as much strengthening as any part of the body since they play an important role in everyday activities like climbing stairs or squatting to pick up a child. Knee stability may not be top of your mind when heading to the gym, but it is essential.

Knee stability, as defined by physical therapist Carrie Whitelam, is “the ability to maintain alignment and positioning of your knee during movement and activity." Passive structures like the ACL and MCL ligaments help with knee stability, as well as active structures, including muscles like the quads, hamstrings, and hips.

Each muscle group plays a particular role, explains Braidy Solie, a physical therapist and strength and conditioning specialist with Training HAUS. The quads are responsible for straightening the knee, while the hamstrings assist in bending it, and the hips are like the steering wheel that controls the alignment of the knee when moving.

That being said, Whitelam, who works at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City, says most people could benefit from strengthening exercises that could improve knee stability. This can help avoid the risk of pain and injury when using the knees in everyday activities.

When the quads, hamstrings, and hips are strong enough to do their jobs, the knee's bones, cartilage, and ligaments won’t be subjected to any unnecessary stress, Solie says.

On the other hand, when these muscles are weak, this can result in common knee injuries like ligament tears, meniscal tears, and patellar tendonitis, more commonly known as "jumper's knee," that affects the tendon connecting the kneecap to the shinbone.

There are three simple exercises you can do to help strengthen your knee, according to Solie. These are the step-up, forward lunge, and lateral lunge. Here’s how to do them.

Step-Up

You will need a sturdy box or a stepper for this exercise. Begin by standing in front of the box, with your feet hip-width apart. Then step up with one foot, followed by the other. With both feet on top, hip-width apart, pause for a moment, then step back down and repeat, this time beginning with the opposite foot. This exercise, according to Solie, encourages proactively stabilizing the knee as you plant your foot.

Forward Lunge

On a flat surface, begin with your feet shoulder-width apart and your hands on your hips. Then step forward about two feet with your right foot, planting it firmly on the floor. Make sure to bend both knees at 90-degree angles, keeping your chest upright and your torso slightly forward, with your back flat and not arched. Also, keep your right quad parallel to the floor and your right knee above your right foot. You should feel your butt and core firming up. Then push back to return to the position you started before doing the same thing with the left foot. If your knee wobbles side to side, Solie suggests regressing to a basic squat until you build more control.

Lateral Lunge

A good starting point is to perform each exercise for 30 seconds, then rest for 30 seconds in between, for three to four rounds. Once it gets easy, you can add dumbbells or kettlebells and perform three sets of 15 to 20 reps, gradually increasing weight over time.

One important note: if your knee has repeatedly buckled, your kneecap has felt like it's slipped out of place, or you notice unusual weakness around the joint, see a physical therapist or doctor before doing these exercises. "Sometimes there could be underlying damage that you're unaware of that you could just be making worse," Whitelam says.