Does Walking Backwards on Treadmill Strengthen Your Knee.

Walking backward on the treadmill is not going to strengthen your quads no matter what you’ve seen on social media!

The truth is walking backward is a REHAB tool that’s great for retraining your quads and ensuring you fully straighten your knee while walking.

(This is especially helpful after surgery or when knee pain has been persistent for a long time)

When you walk backwards on a treadmill, it forces you to strike the ground with your big toe, push through your heel, and get full knee extension which naturally activates your quad and reinforces proper walking mechanics and use of your knee joint

It may seem simple, and you might be thinking, "But I know how to walk!"

However, when your knee is in pain, your body compensates, finding ways to avoid pain—even if that means moving incorrectly.

Over time, this leads to persistent pain and further stress on other parts of your leg. Backward walking helps prevent these compensatory patterns from becoming a long term issue

Here’s where people get it wrong though - this is not going to STRENGTHEN your QUADS

(unless you’ve been completely sedentary for month And in that case just walking forward and getting out of bed would make you stronger!)

But if all you did was backwards walking you won’t see strength gains

Sure, it looks trendy and it makes for good social media content (though, honestly it's bullshit in my opinion)

But building actual quad strength (or any muscle for that matter) requires proper programming that includes:

• using challenging weights
• progressively overloading your muscles overtime
• focusing on exercises that specific target the quads like squats, lunges leg press, knee extension, etc

So don't fall for the hype.

Doing backward walking on the treadmill just because you saw it online without any thought process behind it is a waste of time