Clamshell Exercises For Knee, Back, Hip, and Ankle Pain
What one amazing exercise can help your hip, knee, AND ankle? We would like to introduce to you the clamshell exercise. Anybody should be doing them, from those recovering from surgery to those who are intense athletes. As frontal mammals, we are constantly using our frontal zone to walk, jog, and run, yet frequently neglect our lateral hips. This exercise helps us fill in that weakness. It’s important to stabilize your hips when having those pains to decrease frequent muscle spasms and to improve muscle functionality.
First what you want to do is find yourself a place to lay down like on a sofa or on the ground, preferably somewhere where you have something to also give back support. It’s ok if no back support is there. Then, lay down on the side where your heel and hip is touching the back support. If no back support, you can simply bend your knees so it’s similar. You can also have a cushion to support your head during the exercise. What you want to do next is open up your knee as high as you can go but still in comfortable range and then bring it down low. This is the clamshell exercise because it mimics the opening and closing of a clam. For those who want a simple “pump it out” type of exercise, open and close in a nice, steady rhythm. For those who prefer a slow workout, you can open and then drop down even slower. This will create an even better workout with less irritation. The ideal number is to be able to do them at least 20-30 times and eventually work your way up to doing 50 each time.
And that’s that! A simple exercise that benefits all types of people and a multitude of painful zones. Keep your eyes open for future vital exercises that make pain vanish!
At Lilly Physical Therapy, we want our patients to heal as fast as possible with only the best results. To do this, we combine a multitude of techniques such as unique exercises, laser, and manual hand work. These combinations guarantee results for pain free living. Call today to stop your pain!
425.224.2476
Picture Bibliography:
#1: http://www.bloglujo.com/files/2014/05/Depositphotos_5936247_m.jpg
#2: http://api.ning.com/files/LB6l9Yyl8LBU9yH7euM-BrI7j4vln1FXqfPnbVca13Uqy0moY66yJL29StbeBr3gi6MlwsVeXCQbX12N3IbhJwiuRHu4cuC7/clamshell.jpg
