4 Knee-Friendly Lower Body Strength Exercises

You know what people who enjoy training leg day all have in common?

Their knees don’t hurt. 

Summoning the motivation to hit lower body exercises with gusto is hard enough without having to worry about how your knees will cope. Whether you've experienced an injury in the past, your form isn’t up to par, or you come into training with a niggle, you’re setting yourself up for disaster if you just push through knee pain without any care. 

Not to mention, if you’re worried about knee pain you’ll be much more likely to skip out on your lower body training —even though strengthening the muscles in your legs (and therefore, improving your knee function) will help to keep them healthy as you get older. Muscles, bones, and joints need load and work to stay strong!

If your knee pain stems from an injury, make sure that you're cleared to get back in the gym to begin with. Working with an experienced physiotherapist or strength coach during this time can save you a lot of blood, sweat and tears (and money!). You should also make sure that you don't push too hard too soon —if the pain goes beyond just an ache or annoyance, stop training and see a medical professional to determine if you have a more serious problem.

Here are four knee-friendly solutions for confident leg training. Use them all together in one workout, or perform each separately during sessions across the week. 

1. Box Squats 

Squatting to a box prevents you from squatting deeper than you can control, and allows you to stop the movement before the onset of pain. 

The loaded back squat is one of the most common leg training exercises around. Sometimes, squats cause pain, whether it’s because of a limited range of motion or prior injuries. We can solve both problems by squatting to a box.

Choose a box or bench low enough to squat where your hip socket is parallel to your knee at the bottom. Sit back onto the box so your shins stay vertical through the movement. Bias your weight over the mid-foot and emphasise a controlled descent. Brace your core by locking your ribs down to your pelvis. Control touching down so you touch the box gently and don’t slam down on each rep. Don’t worry too much about pushing your knees out, but don’t let the cave inward like a baby giraffe either. 

Squatting to a box prevents you from squatting deeper than you can control, and allows you to stop the movement before the onset of pain. 

Also, you’re not limited to using a barbell; box squats work with any squat variation, from the classic barbell across shoulders or with a dumbbell in your hands, or my personal favourite, a safety squat bar. 

Warm up with some foam rolling of the quad just above the knee for a minute or two (don’t go crazy here, you don’t need to spend 30 minutes on a foam roller) and perform some isometric squat holds or wall sits to increase blood flow to the tendons and muscles around the knee. Start with 2 sets of 30 seconds prior to lifting.

Aim for sets of 8-10 reps with a controlled 3-0-1-0 tempo to begin with. 

2. Reverse Lunges

Whether your goal is sports, aesthetics or daily function, single leg training is worth its weight in gold. 

The lunge is one of the most common movements to integrate single-leg training into your workouts, but if done poorly, it can play havoc for people with knee issues. 

Eliminate the pain with a simple fix: maintain a vertical shin.

The easiest way to do this? Lunge backwards. 

Reverse lunges are an excellent movement for people with cranky knees. A reverse lunge is where you step behind your body before standing to your original position. Lean forward with your torso to counterbalance shifting your hips back. You should be effectively warmed up from squats so train three to four sets of six to ten reps, within two reps of failure.

3. Romanian Deadlifts

If I had to pick one heavy lower body exercise to do, this would be it. Romanian deadlifts are an excellent exercise to build strength in the hamstrings and glutes. Not only will strong glutes and hamstrings and mobile hips let you move better overall, it may help resolve your knee pain. 

You can perform Romanian deadlifts with a barbell, or with dumbbells or kettlebells. To begin with, start with dumbbells in both hands, pinkies turned 45 degrees toward your sides. Flatten your back by locking your ribs down to your pelvis. Start by bending your knees slightly then initiate a hip hinge motion by pushing your hips back and tipping your torso forward. If you’ve ever seen the movie “Legally Blonde” then this is essentially the “bend and snap!” movement done with weights. 

Keep the weights close to your shins and pivot slowly until you reach as far as you can stretch your hamstrings and glutes without rounding your back. Reverse direction with a forceful push forward from your hips until you’re standing tall with glutes tucked under ribs. There’s no need to lean back at the top of each rep. 

4. Sled Drags 

Many modern gyms have turf and sleds. Sled training is an excellent way to build strength and endurance in the legs, as well as increase your general fitness. Sled pushes are great, but sled pulls often feel better on painful knees. In addition to this, sled drags are a great way to strengthen weak or injured knee structures. 

Sled drags are quite simple, you walk backwards dragging the sled. My preferred setup is to use TRX hands or similar and attach them to the sled. Start in a quarter squat position and maintain a strong posture as you walk backwards with your arms outstretched holding the TRX handles. Focus on “rolling” from the toes to the heels and pushing the ground away as you walk.

If your sled track is 20m long, 3 sets of that will finish off a productive workout nicely. 

Execute these knee-friendly leg training strategies and learn to love (or at least stop hating) your leg training again.