Leg Exercise - Straight Leg Raise

Commonly Used For: Knee pain and post-surgical recovery.

Video Transcription: I'm going to show you how to do a straight leg raise which is a good exercise for getting your quads to turn back on after a knee injury. So what you want to do is you're going to lay down, the side you want to strengthen is going to be straight, the opposite leg can stay in a bent position to help support your lower back. You want to bring your toes up towards the ceiling, that's going to help you turn your quad on. Tighten your leg so that your knee goes down towards the floor, keeping your leg as straight as you can, and then you're going to lift up just until your thighs meet and then slowly back down. So raising and lowering, making sure that you keep your leg as straight as you can the whole time, you should not let your knee bend. To help you make sure that you keep your knee in that nice tight position, you might want to make a tightening at the bottom, raise and then squeeze your quads again when you get to the top, lower, tighten again, raise, squeeze again. And repeat just up and down just like that making sure everything stays nice and straight, and that's your straight leg exercise.