Podcast Transcription: How To Get Rid of Knee Pain in 5 Minutes (Or Less)

Ted Ryce: I remember coming home after a jujitsu class, and I was in my apartment squatting down to sit on the couch, and as I lowered myself down, I could feel my knees creak. I could almost hear them, they were that bad, and they ached. There was pain. And I was thinking to myself, "Oh my gosh, I'm in my early 30s. 

How are my knees gonna be in my 40s, 50s, 60s, or even 70s? Am I even gonna be able to walk? Will I need surgery? How many surgeries?" But I can tell you I'm 49 now, and my knees are a lot better. And it wasn't the age that helped. Age is never helping you , okay? Age is not just a number. After 30, you're just breaking down. 

But the good news is it doesn't have to be that way. In fact, you can reverse a lot of damage even if you feel like right now your knees are broken, or you've been told by a, probably a well-meaning doctor that you're bone-on-bone, uh, arthritis or any type of thing like that. And I'm not gonna go into it right now, the full story at least, but for the past couple years, I'm like, "Who really has the answers here?" 

So I've done a lot of things. I've, I've, I've done stem cells, emotional healing, all this stuff that I thought maybe it's my emotional issues that are causing pain in my body and in my knees. None of it worked. But I eventually found something that did. And even better, I'm gonna prove it to you in this episode, and I will give you... 

This is not just an, a, a listen-along episode. I'm gonna give you things to do in this episode. In fact, we're gonna get to that in a moment, but let me introduce myself before I get ahead too deep into this episode. My name's Ted Ryce. Welcome back to the Legendary Life podcast. I'm an executive health coach for entrepreneurs, executives, and high-performing professionals after 40. 

And- Before we go on a bit, I wanna tell you this. I don't wear knee braces anymore. I'm back to jumping. I can go running. I can sprint. My knees work better now at 49 than they did at 32. And another thing that I want you to know in case you're new to this show is why you should listen to me at all. Well, I've been coaching people for 27 years, and yeah, I've worked with celebrities like Sir Richard Branson, Ricky Martin, Robert Downey Jr., 

back in my personal training days in Miami Beach where I started this whole journey in 1999. But most of my clients today aren't famous. They are CEOs, executives, and high-performing professionals, running companies, opening companies, selling companies, doctors, attorneys. But the real reason that I can help you isn't the high-profile clients or famous names. 

It's because I've dedicated my whole life to figuring this out because it's a problem that I've faced. Like, I'm very motivated to figure this out, and I don't give up, especially we're living in such an incredible time with all these breakthroughs. And b- before I go off on another tangent, here's what I want you to take away from that. 

There is no reason to have bad knees after 40. If your knees are really bad like mine were, you can get them to a point where they're way better than what you thought possible. And if you just have some aches and pains that show up every once in a while in your knees, you can get rid of those permanently and then possibly never have them again. 

So again, I'm, I'm not asking you to believe me. I'm gonna show you how in this episode today, so I'm gonna walk you through it right now. The first thing I want you to do is we're gonna do a test because I want, I want to prove this to you in the moment. So here's what we're gonna do. Here's how we're gonna find out what's really going on with your knees or knee, and it takes about a minute. 

What you're gonna do is you're gonna stand up, and we're gonna do three squats. So With these squats, what I want you to do, I'm-- normally a trainer or whoever is gonna say, "Hey, put your feet shoulder-width or slightly wider than shoulder-width." I don't want you to do that. I want you to put your feet basically together. 

They don't have to be together-together, but they're-- I want them to be more narrow than shoulder-width. Why am I doing this? Because it's gonna load your knees, and that's exactly what we want. Now what I want you to do, just listen before you do this, I want you to squat down three times and go down as far as you comfortably can, and I want you to score on a scale of one to ten how much pain you have, zero being no pain. 

I know I said one to ten, but zero being no pain, ten being like, "Rush me to the hospital." So go ahead and do that now, and also pay attention to how much pain do you have, one-- on a scale of one to ten. How far can you get down? And how smooth is it? Do you feel sturdy, grindy, or hesitant, right? And just make a note of those three things, and here's why this matters. 

We're going to do a test after the three exercises that I'm gonna take you through today. And by the way, I'm just gonna throw this out right now, it can be a little tricky to listen to this podcast and do what I'm asking you to do, although I would encourage you to try it. But you can go and download this free protocol that I've created for you at Strong Knees After 40, that's the number 40, 

.com, so strongkneesafter40.com/protocol. Okay? Strongkneesafter40.com/protocol. So we, we've just done your before test, and we're gonna test it again after. And what this is gonna measure is something that no scan can tell you. Does your knee respond to the right type of loading? And if it does, this isn't really about the damage. 

This is about you need good programming to build more tissue tolerance and capacity, which are two terms that you may have never heard of before, but they're from the physical therapy world or the, the latest in physical therapy, right? The cutting edge in physical therapy. Tissue tolerance and capacity and rebuilding it. 

And another rule before we start the actual exercises, because now you should have done the narrow stance squats and rated your pain on a scale of one to 10, and, uh, and whatever it was, whether you couldn't even come down hardly at all because the pain started getting so bad, whe- whether it was your sharp pain or not, that's okay. 

Just make a mental note of it, 'cause we're gonna do it again after and see if there's an improvement. The other thing is, one rule before we start, if you feel sharp pain or sha- sh- uh, pain that climbs higher and, right, gets worse, you need to back off. And I s- I should also say this, I'm not a medical professional. 

I work with a lot of clients and have helped many, many clients with injuries and different medical issues, but I'm not a doctor. If you need to go to a doctor, uh, go get a diagnosis, et cetera, et cetera, go see a medical professional. And if you have pain doing this, stop, contact someone, right? I'm not responsible for your bad judgment, okay? 

In trying to do this. So if you have pain, stop- So let's get into it. The first thing, the first move you're gonna do is a terminal knee extension. Now, this exercise, it targets your quadricep muscles, your quads, specifically the last degrees when you're straightening your leg. So again, you can go to strongkneesafter40.com/protocol and see I have a video for you that you can watch. 

So what you're gonna do is you're gonna need a resistance band for this exercise. So... And when I say resistance band, I don't mean the bands with the handles and, and really light resistance. I mean the thick bands that you find at the gym. Hopefully, you have some at your home. Although I can... I will give you a- an alternative in case you don't have a band. 

So what I want you to do is you're gonna loop the band around your knee so that the band is pulling from behind your knee, right? So you're- you step through, loop the band around your knee, and the band is pulling your knee in from behind, okay? Pulling your knee from behind, right? In other words, if you're standing up, it's pulling from behind your knee and causing your knee to... 

Like, your knee wants to bend forward. And then when you squeeze your quad, you're gonna re- you're gonna resist against the band, and you're gonna feel a lot of resistance. And so what I want you to do, you're gonna hold that for 30 to 45 seconds. And so what I want you to do is I want you to back away from the band so they get... 

you, you get quite a bit of resistance, and you're gonna straighten your leg, and you're gonna squeeze, and you should feel your quad light up. And when I say light up, I mean activate. I- it's not that it's gonna hurt. It shouldn't hurt. And you're gonna hold that for 30 to 45 seconds. If it's easy, go for 45 seconds. 

If it's a bit hard, go for 30. And what I want you to do is one set on each leg, and this is your warmup. Now, if you're at home, and let's say you don't have one of these bands, well, what do you do? Great question. You can either take a rolled-up towel or a pillow and find a wall, and you're gonna stand with your back to the wall. 

You're gonna put the pillow or rolled-up towel right behind your knee, and you're gonna back up into it so that your knee is slightly bent. And what you're gonna do, you're gonna extend your leg so that the back of your knee is pushing into the towel or the, the ball. You can also use an exercise ball or a, what do you call it? 

A pillow. Anything that you can brace against. And again, you're gonna hold that for 30 to 45 seconds on each leg. So that's the alternative And after you do that, now your quads are a little bit warmed up. Your, your, not just your quadricep muscles, but your knees are warmed up. So we're gonna move into exercise number two, which is gonna be a single leg wall sit. 

Now, this loads your knee and quadricep under a lot of tension, so I want you to do this carefully. So what I want you to do is I want you to stand with your back against the wall. You're gonna walk your feet out, and you're gonna start to slide your back down the wall, uh, to where you're in a squat position, like you're sitting in an invisible chair. 

But what I want you to do, and I don't want you to, uh, ideally you'd be at 90, but if you're doing this right now and you have knee pain, you're probably not gonna start at 90 degrees unless you're extremely fit. So, and even if you are extremely fit, you can aggravate your knee with this, so don't go to 90, but just know over time you're wanting to get to 90 degrees. 

So just bend it maybe 45 degrees, something like that, just to get the feel. And what I want you to do after you've bent your knees to that angle, so I want you to take one of your legs and lift them off the floor. Start with the, the knee that, or, or the knee/leg that is weaker or in more pain, and that's the leg that you're gonna work first. 

So what you should feel when, um, you lift up your leg is that all the weight is now on that leg, and you should feel your quad working. You should feel other muscles working. It sh- you should feel a little shaky. And I want you to hold that for 30 to 45 seconds on one leg, and then you're gonna switch to your other leg, right? 

Make sure you time this. Don't just count, but time it. Use your phone or your watch. Time it. And really important, stay in a pain-free range of motion. One of the keys here is don't train... A, a little bit of pain, let's say a 3 out of 10 is okay. Like, okay, I feel, uh, like I wouldn't call it pain-free, but I wouldn't say it's like pain pain. 

And here's another helpful tip. How you know that you're in the right amount of pain is that it's, it's gonna feel good after, okay? It shouldn't feel like, "Oh, I'm holding it, and I'm mentally tough, but man, my knee is hurting," and, "Oh, I just stopped and now my knee hurts." Oh, well, you fucked up, right? That's exactly what we're not trying to do. 

That's exactly what we're trying to avoid. Probably why you have knee pain in the, in, in the first place is because you don't know how to appropriately push yourself. But hopefully that's not your story, but just know if that happens, you, you've got some work to do to approach this with more skill, okay? 

So again, 30 to 45 seconds on one leg, 30 to 45 seconds on the other. Now let's move to the hamstring foam roller bridge. Now, this is gonna be an exercise that requires a foam roller, but I will give you an alternative in case you don't have a foam roller. So what you're gonna do, you're gonna take your shoes off, by the way, and you're going to lay on your back, your knees are gonna be bent, and you're gonna put the balls of your feet, not the heels, but the balls of your feet on the foam roller. 

What I want you to do, I want you to push the balls of your feet into the foam roller, so, so you're doing like a calf raise. And what you're gonna do now, holding that calf raise-like position, pressing into the foam roller, you're gonna squeeze your glutes and you're gonna bridge up, and you're gonna hold it. 

And you should feel the, the foam roller trying to pull away from you. And you should also probably feel this a lot more, is the hamstrings stopping that motion, stopping the ha- the foam roller from pulling away from you, and you're gonna hold that for 30 to 45 seconds. Now look, if you don't have a foam roller, what I want you to do is you can do this right off the floor. 

And instead, what you're gonna do is you're gonna dig your heels into the floor, and then you're gonna just bridge up with your heels into the floor. Your knees should be bent. It should not be at 90 degrees. They should be a little bit longer. Your legs should be a little bit longer than 90 degrees. 

We're not trying to do a hip bridge, we're trying to do a hamstring bridge, okay? So we wanna target your hamstring, so, so the angle is gonna be a little bit more open, all right? And then do that for 30 to 45 seconds, and that's the protocol, okay? Now, we just went through three exercises, but we have to do the test after. 

So what are we gonna do now? Provided that you did this the right way, there should be either zero change in your knee pain as you stopped, or It should feel better. Is there a chance that it feels worse if you did this improperly? Of course. But what I want you to do now is I want you to do that narrow squat test exercise, the, the exercise that we started with as a test where I had you rate your pain on a scale of 1 to 10 and see how deep you could get and how smooth it felt. 

So what I want you to do now is do that test and answer the question, like, did the pain change? Were you able to come down further? Did it feel better, right? Those are the questions that I want you to ask. And if the answer is no, well, then, you really need to hire, uh, someone to help you, okay? Like, well, if you're in pain or worse pain, like, ugh, I feel for you, my heart goes out to you, but you need serious help. 

Go see a doctor, right? Now- If your knees got better, here's what I want to tell you. You have an awesome opportunity to build on this. It means that with the right loading, your knee pain starts going away, your function improves, and all you need is the right protocol progressed over time, and you can get back to doing things that you probably thought you had to give up forever. 

Like me, I thought I never was gonna be able to jump again. Like, if I had to, I could jump. I had the physical ability to do it, but I wouldn't train jumping because it would hurt my knees. But now I train jumping to make my knees better. Oh man, there's been a lot of breakthroughs in the past 10, 15 years in sports medicine. 

Fortunately, I'm catching up in the past few years, but man, there's a lot of breakthroughs, but there's mostly bad information out there. And I did this to heal myself, but you can benefit from this as well, and that's why I put together this free guide. I call it the N- Five Minute Knee Pain Protocol, and it's got a photo for every move and a video for each move in case you tried listening to me and you didn't quite get it because you're, you're more like me, you learn more visually. 

Like, "Show me the video and I'll go do it." Well, that's what I have for you, and it's free, takes about five minutes. And again, if you felt the difference on this or you're really interested in, uh, you weren't quite able to follow the protocol because you were driving or just didn't get the, the aud- uh, the audio instructions, go to strongkneesafter40.com/protocol. 

That's strongkneesafter40, the number 40, .com/protocol. All right? And one more thing. If you are a person who is a high-performing professional, executive, entrepreneur, and you have plenty of motivation to take care of your health and to train and exercise, but you're dealing with injuries like knee issues, shoulder issues, low back pain or hips, and you want to have a conversation about... 

Well, maybe you don't wanna have a conversation, but you wanna get those things fixed, you wanna get back to training and have minimal flare-ups and be able to go back to doing the things that you love to do, playing tennis, playing golf, go to legendarylifepodcast.com/knee and book a call with me. We'll discuss your situation, and I'll see if your situation is something that I feel like I can help with. 

All right, that's legendarylifepodcast.com/knee. That is it for me. Hope you enjoyed this. Download the guide. Go through it. You're not as broken as people have been telling you. You just need the right loading protocol. With the right progression, the right program, you can get back to a really high level of function. 

Hope that helps. Talk to you on the next episode. Speak to you then