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Good morning guys, Tony Maritatto here, licensed physical therapist, and I want to talk to you today about two laying down self-mobilization exercises to work on both knee extension and knee flexion
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Now I've got a couple other videos on the channel talking about these positions, but I haven't updated those videos for a while, so we're going to update those videos
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So my favorite way for patients to work on knee flexion if they're at home
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It's always kind of hard to explain the bed setup, but just imagine for a second if I'm sitting sideways at the edge of my bed, right
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So the head of the bed is there. The footrest is down there. I'm sitting my feet are on the floor
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If you have a taller bed, that's okay. But basically what we're going to do is you're going to have the surgical leg hanging off the side of the bed
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you're going to scoot forward a little bit so there's some space between the side of the bed
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and the calf muscle and then you're going to lay down and so as I lay down effectively what's
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happening is I'm extending the hip while the knee is being flexed if you have a slightly higher bed
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in fact I going to grab some pillows if you have a higher bed it even better but if you If you have a low bed that okay You put a couple pillows underneath the thigh and then what you gonna do
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is again you're gonna lay back and you're just gonna let that leg rest in
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this flexed position. Now I've got the pillow touching the calf muscles so I'm
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getting a little bit of support. I can do a little bit of this kind of bouncing
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motion and you can imagine how every time it comes down I'm trying to relax
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the quadricep muscle I'm trying to let everything go loose a little bit of
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discomfort is okay but once you get to the point where there's a sharp or really
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noticeable pain you're not getting any more benefit on flexion the way to
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improve flexion is to be able to relax in the flexed position if your bed is
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high enough you can just remove those pillows and let the leg hang or dangle
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down completely as you improve you might be able to tap your heel against the
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side of the bed if this becomes too easy you can always slide forward a little
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bit more and go get a little more knee flexion in there of course we could use
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the non leg crossover in front to get it if it becomes too uncomfortable I can use the non leg behind my knee to kind of help support it and lift it But the idea is that I
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find that patients who have a target, who have something that they can feel with their heel
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tend to do better when they're working on knee flexion. Now we're going to flip over and we're
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to talk about knee extension for a minute. So let's pretend your flexion is coming along and you want
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to work on that last little bit of three to five degrees of extension. There's two positions that I
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like best both of them laying on your stomach. Now if you have low back issues, if you have spinal
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stenosis or any kind of arthritis in the low back, this is not the right exercise for you and that's
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totally fine. There's lots of other exercises you can do but if you don't mind laying on your stomach
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Then one of the best ways to do it, these are called prone hangs
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is I literally lay on my stomach. I put my kneecap off of the edge of the bed
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So this is the side of the bed. My kneecap is not touching the bed at all
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And I just relax in this position. I let gravity do the work. I could do a couple bounces again as long as I don feel any sharp pain A little bit of discomfort is acceptable Pain is not And I might spend three to five minutes in this position I could hook my non leg
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under my surgical leg to give me a little support if I need a break. I can hook my non-surgical leg
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on top if I feel like I need a little bit of extra pressure to increase the extension while I'm in
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this position. If this is too uncomfortable, you can come up a little bit higher so there's a little
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bit of support, but I will say that if the knee is on the bed, there's going to be some pressure on
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the incision. Now, if your incision is sensitive, there are other videos on the channel talking
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about desensitizing a sensitive incision. So guys, these are just two recommendations. It is
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like an endless list of exercises that can be done to improve flexion improve extension these
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are the kinds of things that i want you to talk to your physical therapist about because your
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physical therapist is amazing at coming up with alternative ideas new things really new things
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to do the same thing new ways to do the same thing which is improve flexion improve extension
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guys thanks so much for supporting the channel please subscribe if you haven't and i'll catch
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you on the next video
