What Is High Knee Exercise?
For starters, the high knee is something that works most of your lower body muscles. However, it also works your abdominal muscles because you will be using them to stabilize yourself.
Performing the high knee is about as easy as it gets. You start by standing with your feet at about hip-width. Subsequently, you raise one knee towards your chest before lowering it. Then, you repeat the motion using your other knee. Alternating between your knees is a good way to ensure that you work both the same amount. Furthermore, you can either increase or decrease the pace at which you perform the motion depending on your personal preferences.
Do You Need Knee Braces When Performing a High Knee Exercise?
It is worth thinking about knee braces anytime you do something intense using your knees. Yes, your knee might be perfectly healthy. Still, some protection and prevention go a long way for this as well as for other things. If your knee isn’t perfectly healthy, that makes protection and prevention that much more important.
With that said, the high knee isn’t a particularly intense exercise. As a result, chances are good you won’t need a knee brace unless you have some kind of knee issue. For example, you might be experiencing knee pain. Similarly, you might have a recent knee injury. Still, there are claims that knee braces can help out with protection and prevention, so that is something you might want to look into. Of course, you should always listen to your doctor when it comes to these things. Said individual is the one who should have the best understanding of what you should and shouldn’t do health-wise. Therefore, you should give their recommendations due consideration.
What Are the Benefits of High Knee Exercise?
It is time to move on to other questions once you have answered, “What is high knee exercise?” For instance, you should look into the benefits of high knee exercise. After all, those are what you can use to determine whether something is worthwhile or not:
Counts As Cardiovascular Exercise
High knees count as a form of cardiovascular exercise. Thanks to that, you can count on it providing you with the same benefits as other forms of cardiovascular exercise. Perhaps unsurprisingly, high knees help you reduce your chances of getting cardiovascular problems by regulating your blood sugar while lowering your blood pressure. However, high knees also provide a wide range of other important benefits. For example, exercise is a mood booster. Similarly, exercise strengthens the immune system. Put together, high knees are very beneficial for you if you choose to integrate them into your fitness program.
Work Your Lower Body and Abdominal Muscles
As mentioned earlier, high knees work not just your lower body muscles but also your abdominal muscles. That means you can get better performance out of them. Moreover, that means you can get more reliable performance out of them, which is at least as important if not more so. Working some muscles but not others can cause serious issues. Due to that, you should value high knees as a way to work so many muscles at once.
Easy to Do
Speaking of which, convenience is one of the biggest benefits of high knees. Different exercises have different equipment requirements. Some have high equipment requirements, meaning you can’t perform them unless you have access to the hard-to-move equipment. High knees are on the exact opposite end of the spectrum from those exercises because you don’t need anything to do them. Indeed, you should have no problem doing high knees so long as you have standing room. Something that can’t be said for most exercises out there.
Safe to Do
On a related note, high knees are also a very safe exercise for people with a wide range of physical capabilities. That is important because some exercises come with an inherent measure of risk that makes them unsuitable for certain people under certain circumstances. Other exercises are fine when performed in the right manner but can lead to injuries when they aren’t. High knees are productive but not very intense. Thanks to that, people can perform this exercise with little fear of hurting themselves, which can be particularly useful for people who are suffering from some kind of physical issue at the moment.
Further Considerations
This should have provided you with a decent summary of “What is high knee exercise?” If you want to know more, you shouldn’t hesitate to consult trainers, online websites, and other resources that are available to you. For that matter, you should also look into other exercises, which should provide you with even more options to choose from.