Body Prescription "What the body needs"

I have had a knee replacement and I heard of low impact exercises. I am excited to get back into shape and would like to exercise with as little impact on my knees as possible. I’m not sure what the difference between a low impact and a high impact exercise is. What is a low impact exercise?

A low impact exercise is any type of workout, drill, exercise, or movement that reduces the trauma or shock to joints such as knees, ankles, hips, elbows, and shoulders.

Any time you reduce the impact, striking, or hitting forces on body parts that are connected to a joint; you reduce the injuries that come from those greater forces being produced. A perfect example of an exercise that is not low impact would be “jumping”. When you jump in the air and land on your feet, you are elevating the body off of the ground and your lower extremities now have to absorb your body weight at landing. It is not a low impact exercise because at the point of landing, you are creating an impact or striking movement that adds stress to your ankle, knee, and hip joints. A perfect example of a low impact exercise would be “body squats”, which is squatting your own body weight. There are no traumatic forces affecting the joints because you are taking away the striking or impact forces that may pound on your joints. Please be sure to use proper form when performing all your exercises.