30 Day Home Office Fitness Challenge: Day 21 Bad Knees

by Scott Tousignant · Filed Under: Fat Loss Quickie Home Workouts · Fat Loss Quickie Motivation

For today’s home office fitness challenge I’m going to share a very powerful and motivating audio to help you overcome your ‘bad’ knees as well as video demonstrations of alternative exercises that you can perform if you have knee problems. But first… Do you have ‘bad’ knees? Of course not! Yes, you may experience pain, you may have a strained ligament, worn out cartilage, and so on. But it does not mean they are bad? If you have issues with your knees you have two choices…

You can say, “My knee is bad I have to avoid exercise or at least certain exercises and that probably means I won’t be able to achieve optimal fat loss because I am limited in what I can do.”

…Or you can say, “I have an arthritic knee and I’m not going to let that stop me from achieving the body and life that I deserve. I know other people with arthritic knees that have achieved tremendous success and I’m not going to let anything get in the way of reaching my goals.”

I’m not going to deny that you are experiencing pain or discomfort, but are you going to let that limit you? Do you think that you can turn that around?

First of all, allow me to show you eight exercises that are easier on your knees and can help you strengthen them…

Alternative Leg Exercises If You Have Bad Knees

Now I would like you to listen to the powerful audio in the player at the end of this post. Please, please, please listen to the audio. It’s very inspirational. I’ll provide the transcripts below too.

Here’s a portion of an email that I received from one of my Fat Loss Quickie friends, Nan C. Loyd prior to her listening to this audio…

“Last year I had a sudden knee pain. I tried to work through it at the gym on the leg extension machine, etc., to no avail and had to quit. I finally broke down and went to the doc last week and he said, “cartilage is worn down and there is slight arthritis in knee.” He said no lunging, walking on uneven ground, jogging, pivoting, wearing heels, kneeling, etc., and no treadmill until I lose at least 30 pounds (I need to lose 90 all together).”

Here was Nan’s response after listening to the audio…

“You gave me such a fantastic answer to my question last May. You shared Shane James’ story so I began “speaking” to my knees and calling them strong, sound and that they both have new cartilage. In June, the Synvisc the doc shot into my knee was supposed to be settled and be working great. At that time, my knees began hurting instead of feeling better (not as badly, but uncomfortable enough). I was unable to sit in a chair normally with my knee bent (I had to elevate it a little). The rest of stuff the doc said (down below) I couldn’t do, I still couldn’t do.

Now it is September. I have been speaking to my knees, taking oils – coconut, flax seed and omega-3, along with glucosamine sulfate and drinking more water since your email in May. All the things below the doc said I couldn’t do, I can now do. I am able to walk on the treadmill and walk on uneven ground, pivot, WEAR HEELS. I began walking more and more. I even fell the other day while hanging clothes on the line – there was a hole in the ground I didn’t know was there. I stepped in it, turned my leg and fell. Hubby helped me up – I had no pain in my knee. Just 3 months ago, that would have sent me to the hospital with the shape my knees were in. I am now able to do the exercises you mentioned below (was just able to start a week ago, but I started).

By applying the story you told me about Shane James, I am in far, far better shape than I was last May. I just have to say THANK YOU again for sharing that story. While I am a strong proponent of speaking what you want instead of what you have, the doctor report had knocked me for a loop and I was very down. Your answer was exactly what I needed.

Now I am determined to get the rest of the weight off. The most important thing is that I had to say thank you again.

THANK YOU!
Nan C Loyd”

Here’s the transcripts from the audio which is a conversation between myself and friend Shane James…

Shane: It was a funny situation. I had been working out and training, doing the treadmill and elliptical and all that kind of stuff. My knees were starting to get sore, and I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. They got more and more sore. They got so sore to the point where I couldn’t even get out of bed, Scott.

Scott: Wow.

Shane: Yeah. I would get out of bed, and I could barely walk. So I finally went to the doctor and I said to the doctor, “What’s going on here? I can barely move. I cannot walk.” So they sent me for tests and stuff, and my tests came back, and they said, “Well, Shane, this is what’s happened. Your knees have come off their tracks. There’s nothing to hold your kneecaps in any more.”

Scott: Jeez.

Shane: They were wobbling all over, right? I said, “So what’s the verdict? What do we have to do to get this better?” He says, “Well, it’s going to take a long, long time, and you’ve got to quit your exercise.” Quit my exercise? So that means I can never exercise again? He says, “No. You cannot exercise.”

So I went home that night. I remember this like it was yesterday. I go on home and I was like, “Oh, man! What am I going to do? I can’t exercise. Exercise has been my whole life.” Now, for that month, I kind of went through a little bit of depression, right?

Scott: Uh?huh.

Shane: It was kind of like my whole life had been taken away. I’m a motivational speaker. How am I going to be able to stand on stage and speak for eight hours? Now that’s gone too. All my goals and all my dreams, just taken away in a second. And I sat there for about a month, and this was when I started gaining some weight. I started gaining weight. I gained about 25 pounds heavier than I had been ? overweight.

All of a sudden one night I woke up and I said, “You know, that’s just his opinion. That’s his belief. That’s a suggestion he made to me. I don’t have to take that on and hold it out as true right now.”

So what I did was I started to visualize. I would lay in bed before I went to bed ? half an hour, visualize: I had strong knees. I was healthy. I was vibrant. I felt good. I was the guy with the strongest knees in the whole world.

Scott: Right.

Shane: Yeah. And every morning.

Scott: Not just stronger knees, the strongest knees in the world. Hire that man.

Shane: Did you hear that? And I would visualize that in the morning as well. And then, one of my buddies would call me, certain ones. I’d say, “Hey, look. Don’t bring up my knees any more,” because every time you say how your knees are doing, they make a suggestion that I have bad knees.

So I don’t have bad knees. I said, “You call me and you say, ‘Hey, how’s the guy with the strongest knees in the world doing?’ I’d say ‘Fine, great, thank you.’” And so, even when other friends would call me, I would say, “Look, don’t bring up my knees anymore. Don’t call me and ask me how they’re doing.” Because everyone will call me and they say, “How are your knees doing.” Well, they suck! Hello? [laughs]

Scott: [laughs]

Shane: So they all stopped asking me that question. Now, I was visualizing at home, and then when I started going back to the gym ? I wasn’t supposed to go back. And listen to this: I was on a treadmill. I could only do 0.5 walking. I was barely moving.

Scott: Mm?hmm.

Shane: Barely moving. So I started just like that, very slowly. And I would visualize on the treadmill: “The strongest knees. I have the strongest knees in the whole world. Nobody in the whole world has stronger knees than I do.”

I did this for about a month every night. And I had everybody around me. I said, “Bring that energy to me. Bring that energy to me. Visualize for me, me having the strongest knees.” I believe everybody got on board with me. And a month later, I was up on the treadmill at a 2, then a 3, 4, 5. Now I’m at an incline of 4, and my knees are just about perfectly better. Wow.

Scott: Wow. That’s incredible. From someone who is not supposed to exercise ever again, or at least for a very, very long time, and can hardly walk at all, that’s incredible, incredible.

That all started with an authority figure, someone whom we’re supposed to look up to: a doctor telling you. He instilled that belief in your head that you’re not going to be able to do that, and it took you over time to say, “That’s his belief. I want to develop my own belief. I’m not going to let him limit me.”

Shane: That’s right. So often in life, we decide to take on the beliefs and opinions of other people, and we hold them as true. But that’s just their opinion. So I even went back to him. I said, “Hey. You know that suggestion you put in my head about my knees? That wasn’t very good!” [laughs] Honestly, he didn’t really know what to say. He had nothing to say to me. “Well, that’s good you overcame it.” That’s about all he said.

Scott: Yeah. And there are a few things, like even talking about your friends. Your friends were trying to be nice, asking how your knees were, giving you that sympathy. I find that happens a lot in weight loss. People are looking for sympathy. If they’ve got a thyroid problem, or they’ve got some other health issue where they struggle to lose weight.

Whatever their excuse or reason is for struggling, their friends come up to them and they’re sympathetic and they’re trying to be nice to that person, but what that person doesn’t need from you is the sympathy. They need those positive thoughts. They need you to instill the positive beliefs to get you to live that unstoppable lifestyle.

End of transcript!

Your task for today is to perform the alternative leg exercises in the video above and challenge your limiting beliefs about your ‘bad’ knees. Remember, nothing can get in the way of your success.

You ROCK! Enjoy the experience,

Scott Tousignant

PS If you need help overcoming your limiting beliefs and are looking for extra motivation and accountability, myself and my friends in the Fat Loss Quickie home office fitness program are ready and willing to provide you with that boost and inspiration to help you live the quality of life that you deserve.