Thanks for your wise input Dre! I have stopped running which has helped a lot. Also, I do do more elliptical, treadmill and biking is my new favorite thing. I do take glucosamine 750mg/chondroitin 600mg. I pop 2 every morning. Should I maybe take 1 or 2 later in the afternoon? I will look into the prowler. Thanks again!
You're very welcome Alissa.
If you have a passion for running you may not need to eliminate it completely just reduce it by a good amount of volume. If running outdoors try running on grass or turf as its less impact than blacktop. Otherwise your new forms of cardio are all great substitutes. From personal observation and opinion, swimming will burn the most calories and be the least impacting form. Plus it's a form of resistance training on its own. Biking is another great option and biking itself is one of the best forms of cardio for heart health and again low impact.
The prowler is a different beast altogether and I must warn you, when pushed hard, even professional athletes succumb to "prowler sickness" lol. When pushed too hard, they go into an emetic episode bc it just pushes the body to the max. There is no eccentric portion to the prowler movements so DOMS won't be an issue, pushing and pulling will both tax your anaerobic endurance and improve respitory quotient but each has benefits over the other. Here's a link to the prowler on Dick's website:
SKLZ Chrome Power Sled - Dick's Sporting Goods
And here are images of a random ones:
View attachment 553545View attachment 553546View attachment 553547View attachment 553548View attachment 553549
As you can see you can use it in many ways: pulling backwards with a rope, pulling by running forwards with a shoulder harness attachment, pushing it high, pushing it low, etc. the two long posts on the end is where you can add weights to it to increase resistance but I would suggest running it without weights at first to get accustomed to the stress. You can even load young children on it and get them involved in exercise while using their body weight as resistance lol, I've done it with younger cousins. It can be used on pavement or grass and the sleds are replaceable when worn too much.
The prowler is my favorite piece of equipment to train endurance, anaerobic capacity, burn lots of calories, add volume to my training without increasing fatigue or affecting recovery, etc. it has a million uses but I have to stress that you must work up the intensity don't just jump in the fray.
As for the glucosamine, in small doses it seems to not do much and even when dosed in a larger scale it doesn't always do the trick. Having said that, I noticed slight improvement in my knees (no arthritis that I know of) when I doubled or tripled the dosage to 1-2g minimum a day. Try increasing your dosage slightly and give it 1-2months to notice any changes. They will not happen overnight. Fish oil and omega-3's have anti-inflammatory response but make sure you don't take in too much omega-6 bc that increases inflammatory response, they're still needed but omega-3's are the most important and usually the ones lacking. Always take 5minites to warm up properly before your training whether its cardio or weights, do not do static stretching until after the workout since cold static stretching could lead to injury. Do dynamic stretching to help warm up and get everything loose and maintain proper form on lifting especially when you do legs. Squats should be to just below parallel as too high a squat can increase stress on the knee. Strengthening your squat and deadlift will strengthen the knees but also strengthen your quads and hamstrings which protect the knee. Stronger muscles around a joint is effectively protecting the joint better than weak muscles. You can try the RICE method as well (rest, ice, compression, elevation) and apply heat after a workout.
Finally, as a result of the stress induced from a bout of training, cortisol is secreted and levels rise. This is a natural response to training and is to be expected. Cortisol is a stress/catabolic hormone. It test secreted during times of stress and it is catabolic bc it signals the body to release or break down protein and aminos which are stored in your muscle. The effectiveness of training can be gauged by your hormonal response and specifically cortisol response. We need cortisol as a complimentary hormone to things like testosterone, igf-1, etc but by slightly lowering the cortisol response we can also hopefully reduce inflammation to a small extent. To do this take 3-5g of vitamin C post workout. That will be enough to lower cortisol levels and help the inflammatory response to training. It may cause slight digestive problems and lead to a trip to the bathroom but after a few days you'll get accustomed to it and not react like that. Vitamin C is water soluble and has pretty high standards to reach toxic levels so drink lots of water around the dosing as well.
Hopefully my ramblings have made some semblance of sense and you can pick the info that will help you get better. Best of luck in your goals and hopefully you'll have some happy Knees after this
