The Method The knee
Is exercise good for knee osteoarthritis?
Yes. Both major guidelines put exercise at the core of care for an arthritic knee.
SettledConsistent evidence across meta-analyses.
Updated . The Vanguard coaching team.
What most people miss
An arthritic knee feels like a reason to rest it. The guidelines say the opposite. The Osteoarthritis Research Society International lists structured land-based exercise among its core recommendations,1 and the American College of Rheumatology strongly recommends exercise for knee osteoarthritis.2
A recommendation is only as good as the weeks you keep it up. So the program has to load the knee in a way it tolerates, often enough to count, for long enough to matter.
Diagnosis, imaging, medication and injections belong to your doctor. The exercise is where coaching comes in.
The research
The papers behind the answer
Each one checked against the paper itself. The grade describes the strength of the evidence, never anyone's results.
Bannuru, Osani, Vaysbrot et al., 2019 · Osteoarthritis Cartilage
Guideline · Osteoarthritis Research Society International
Structured land-based exercise is one of the core recommendations for knee osteoarthritis.
Read the paper by Bannuru, Osani, Vaysbrot et al., 2019 (opens in a new tab)Kolasinski, Neogi, Hochberg et al., 2020 · Arthritis Care Res
Guideline · American College of Rheumatology and the Arthritis Foundation
Exercise is strongly recommended for people with knee osteoarthritis.
Read the paper by Kolasinski, Neogi, Hochberg et al., 2020 (opens in a new tab)
Research describes groups of people. Your coach will tell you how it applies to you.
From the floor
We load the knee by how it responds from one session to the next, and a set that looks wrong stops. Every set is logged, so you can see what it is tolerating.
The Vanguard coaching team