Paul Plakas Answers your Questions

Dear Paul, I’m a 22-year-old woman, and I’ve had 5 surgeries on my pelvis, the last one being in May 2009, and in February 2010 one of the screws that was put in broke. I feel better now and I’ve started walking and 1hr is the longest I’ve walked without stopping since my surgery. My goal is to run 5k in September but I’m not sure how to get started because my cardio endurance is in the toilet and right now the impact of running hurts where I had my surgery. Any suggestions on how I’d be able to accomplish my goal?

You need to go to a personal training company that can perform a kinetic chain assessment, which is an assessment of the tightness and flexibility in your body. They want to see if you can have equal distribution of workload throughout your joints and find out whether your joints are working properly so that if they aren’t they can give you corrective exercises for it.

Also, because you are interested in doing some running, you should get a run gait analysis from a professional, where they’ll put you on a treadmill and workout whether you are running efficiently. They will be able to tell whether you are putting unnecessary stress on your joints. Get those two tests done, do the corrective exercises and become more efficient at running, then you’ll be injury free and good to go.

Dear Paul, I tore the tendons in my right knee three times within a 12-month period. I want to work out at the gym; however, I cannot perform leg extensions on a machine, I have great difficulty getting down on the floor and then getting up again because of knee pain and fear of reinjuring the same knee. What exercises do you recommend I may do to build muscle in my legs and strengthen my knee?
The worst exercise that you could possible do would be a leg extension. It is a completely unnatural movement for any human being to do, because when we exist in the world our feet are in contact with the ground and how we function is with our feet on the ground and our knees and pelvis supporting our body weight.

What you need to do is variations of the squat, which is the most basic fundamental movement that every human being should do. So, you should work with a trainer to look at what progression of a squat you should do - because there are literally hundreds of different types that you could do, from squats for the absolutely bigger to the most advanced. For the absolute beginner, the simplest kind of squat would be to hold onto a railing, and with good posture and feet shoulder width apart, let your butt go backwards like you are going to sit in a chair. Using the railing will mean that your hands take some of the workload off of your knees. Squat to a range that you can control, and then use the power in your legs to get back up. Focus on learning proper squatting technique.

Dear Paul, I have knee and hip pain from arthritis when I walk a lot, which is my exercise of choice right now because I can afford it and it calms me (at least an hour a day, vigorous). Any suggestions on an alternative low cost workout, or is there a way to walk without hurting the joints?

Don’t avoid walking; it’s a basic function that we all need to do in order to exist in the world. Again, I’d advise getting a kinetic chain assessment done, plus a walking analysis by a professional. You need to find out if there are any dysfunctions in your joints, and then find out what the corrective exercises are for that.

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