Anyone here with dodgy knees jump rope a bit?

[Louis]

Does it aggravate you knee problems?

Every since I've been doing more rowing than riding my knees have been a lot better, but depending on the cycling, sometimes I do feel a little something.

However, to add some variety to my gym workouts I'm thinking of adding a few minutes of jumping rope. I don't want to make a marginal situation worse, so if it's likely to aggravate things I won't do it, but it would be nice to have some more weight-bearing activity.

Any thoughts or ideas?

TIA

[gasman]

I like walking for weight bearing exercise and carry a small pack with 10-15 lbs.

[unterhausen]

Swimming helps my knees a lot. The problem with cycling usually is muscle imbalance. I'm not sure why swimming helps, it's not like I'm going fast.

I would guess jumping rope would be okay, but even if it doesn't, I don't see any harm in trying it. You should know fairly quickly.

[jamesdak]

I'm saying NO!!!

My knees are jacked bad. I can't see any kind of impact exercise like jumping rope helping.

In fact, I'm in PT right now for my knees. They have me doing a lot of different exercises but none of them involve impact at all.

[Steve in SLO]

I probably wouldn’t jump rope if I had bad knees. I like the idea of swimming or walking. If you are walking you can put on some 10 pound ankle weights, rather than carry something higher on your body. That will decrease the load on your knees.

[benb]

Side planks and/or side leg raises. (They can be combined.)

Swimming is good too.. I am finding a lot of bang for the buck on the side planks though. They take very little time to do in a workout. They will be very very hard at first though after years of just doing "straight" activities like cycling/walking/running.

Been doing them for ~6 weeks this winter religiously and it has made my pedal stroke feel very solid. Knees and everything tracking really straight.