The Seven Best Exercises For VMO Activation: Early Knee Rehab
- Origin of the VMO: Medial side of the femur (thigh bone)
- Insertion: Quadriceps tendon near the knee
- Artery: Femoral artery
- Nerve: Femoral nerve
- Actions: Knee extension (straightening the knee)
How do I know if I have VMO?
To check the contraction of VMO Sit with your legs out in front of you and a rolled up towel under the injured knee (the knee should be slightly bent). Put your fingers over the area of VMO as shown in the picture.. Push your knee down into the towel. You will feel the muscle tightening under your fingers.
How do I get rid of VMO?
Put your fingers over the area of VMO as shown in the picture.. Push your knee down into the towel. You will feel the muscle tightening under your fingers. If the muscle does not contract, continue to practice whilst pressing down gently on the muscle and concentrating on contracting the fibres underneath your fingers.
How do I perform a VMO with my quads?
Flex your quads muscle with hip/leg slightly externally rotated. Hold contraction for 5-10 seconds, place your fingers on your VMO to ensure your quads muscle is activating and firing.
What is the best way to rehab a torn VMO?
Reduce swelling to reduce the loss of strength or atrophy of the VMO muscle to prevent secondary issues during your rehab. Isometric Contraction: Sitting on your bed or floor with legs out straight, place a towel underneath your knee. Flex your quads muscle with hip/leg slightly externally rotated.
How to work VMO?
Where is the VMO located?
How to get a VMO muscle?
What is the best exercise for VMO activation?
How do I get VMO firing?
Flex your quads muscle with hip/leg slightly externally rotated. Hold contraction for 5-10 seconds, place your fingers on your VMO to ensure your quads muscle is activating and firing. Try 10 reps for 10 seconds and as your strength/endurance improves increase the length of your contractions.
Why is my VMO not working?
The VMO gets weak when it does not activate as much. This tends to happen when there is pain or swelling in the knee. Swelling inside the knee joint capsule can cause the brain to stop normal muscle activation in the quadriceps.
How do you engage vastus medialis?
15 Best Vastus Medialis ExercisesWall Sit With Hip Adduction. ... Squat With Hip Adduction. ... Squat With Externally Rotated Hips. ... Narrow Stance Squats Or Leg Press. ... Heel Elevated Squat. ... 1.25 Squats or Pulse Squats. ... Sumo Deadlift (or Plie Squat) With Dumbbell. ... Leg Press With Externally Rotated Hips.More items...•
How do I activate my medial quad?
How To Do Vastus Medialis ExercisesVMO Activation. Sit upright in a chair, with your knees bent, ball between your knees and your feet flat on the floor. ... Ball Clench Extensions. ... Twisted Leg Raise. ... Ball Bridges. ... Ball Wall Squats. ... Vastus Medialis Stretch.
What causes a tight VMO?
The VMO is also commonly overloaded with repeated use in the following situations: suddenly increasing your volume of running or cycling (running places around 6 x body weight through the quads) a new (or sudden increase) in an exercise program involving repetitive squats, lunges, leg extensions or wall sits.
What happens if you have a weak vastus medialis?
Your vastus medialis helps to stabilize your kneecap and keep it in line when you bend your knee. If you have knee pain or a knee injury, it may be due to weakness of your vastus medialis or other quadriceps muscles.
How do you check VMO strength?
To check the contraction of VMO sit with your legs out in front of you and a rolled up towel under the injured knee (the knee should be slightly bent). Put your fingers over the area of VMO as shown in the picture below. Push your knee down into the towel. You will feel the muscle tightening under your fingers.
Do squats work VMO?
Activation of the VMO Although front squats do work the VMO, you can increase the activation of these muscle fibers and improve strength gains. The VMO is more fully activated during the final degrees of knee extension -- concentrate on locking out your knees at the top of the front squat.
How do you get a teardrop muscle in your leg?
1:568:107 Best Teardrop Muscle Exercises BESIDES Leg Extensions! - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipSo go ahead and pull your pull your toe towards you yeah and do it you might feel in a more intenseMoreSo go ahead and pull your pull your toe towards you yeah and do it you might feel in a more intense contraction if you pull the toe in. But it can be done either.
Why is my quad not firing?
Quad activation failure is caused by arthrogenic muscle inhibition when your knee swells up after a surgery like ACL surgery or total joint replacement. To reduce pain, your nervous system shuts down normal neural stimulation to the muscle to protect the knee joint from the pressure of muscle movement.
How do I make my quad fire?
Exercises to promote quad activationHeel slides.Straight leg raises.Terminal knee extensions.Leg press.Heel raises.Hamstring curls.Although it seems counter-intuitive, building a strong “core” is essential as well.
Does walking strengthen VMO?
0:1511:072 Simple Exercises To Activate The VMO & Stabilize The Knee Within ...YouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipSo why is it very difficult to do because. Well. There's many reasons for it. And we often findMoreSo why is it very difficult to do because. Well. There's many reasons for it. And we often find people have worked on their VMO their glutes their muscles in isolation.
How do I make my vastus medialis bigger?
0:477:20How To Train Your Inner Quads - Vastus Medialis "The Teardrop"YouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipSo let me show you at least seven different exercises. We can hit that muscle. Because some of theMoreSo let me show you at least seven different exercises. We can hit that muscle. Because some of the YouTube videos I've seen on here they got it wrong they're doing some sort of PT style movement
How do you strengthen your vastus lateralis?
10 Best Vastus Lateralis Exercise And StretchesClose Stance Leg Press. The close stance leg press is also called the narrow stance leg press. ... Dumbbell Lunges. ... Barbell Front Squat. ... Dumbbell Bulgarian Split Squat. ... Machine Hack Squat. ... Sissy Squat. ... Kneeling Quad Stretch. ... Hero Pose.More items...•
Where is the vastus medialis?
Vastus medialis is one of the four muscles that make up the quadriceps group of muscles. It originates from the upper part of the femoral shaft and inserts as a flattened tendon into the quadriceps femoris tendon, which inserts into the upper border of the patella.
How does vastus lateralis work?
Top 5 Vastus Lateralis StretchesKneel down on your left knee at 90 degrees while putting your left foot behind you.Grab your foot behind you then gently push the foot away from the center of your body.Drive your hip forward while keeping your back straight and lean forward.Hold for 30 seconds.Repeat with the other leg.More items...•
What is the VMO in the quads?
The VMO attaches to your kneecap (patella) in a 55-degree angle on the top inside edge. The VMO is part of the strong quadriceps muscle group popularly called the quads. The VMO’s most crucial role is to pull the kneecap medially (indoors ). The other three more quad muscles are either neutral or pull the kneecap laterally (external ).
How does a VMO affect your knee?
It can really get you in your knee when you go downstairs. It may yell at you as your knee inexplicably buckles beneath you. Plus it may scream at you on a long-distance run like a stabbing feeling on the inside of your knee. The result is you being forced to drag your leg like a dead weight. All these symptoms may result in swelling and pain around the knee that could result in surgery and, eventually, an entire knee.
How to increase VMO activation?
Doing squats with your heels on an elevated surface has been shown to increase VMO activation (1). Ideally, your feet should be set at between 20-30 degrees. However, while this IS a good way to work your teardrop quad muscle, it may also increase stress on your knee joints. If you have knee pain, avoid this exercise.
Is tap dancing good for a VMO?
It’s not just a good VMO exercise; it’s also great for balance, stability, and coordination. The VMO tap-dance is a useful prehab and rehab exercise and perfect for runners and other athletes. But, work hard enough, and you can also use this move to increase the size of your teardrop quad muscle.
Does adducting your hips increase VMO activation?
Studies suggest that adducting your hips as you flex your knees increases VMO activation (1). That means you need to squeeze your knees together as you bend them. You’ll rarely encounter these two movements in any standard gym exercise, so you’ll need to do this unusual move to get the job done.
How to get rid of VMO?
Clenching a squashy ball between your knees as you do vastus medialis exercises really helps to make sure the VMO is switching on. A foam ball is best but if you don’t have one, use a soccer ball, just make sure has a bit of give in it by letting some of the air out.
Which exercise activates the VMO?
Keeping the leg turned outwards in this vastus medialis exercise again helps to activate the VMO
How does VMO help with patella dislocation?
This would place excessive friction through the cartilage lining the back of the kneecap as well as increasing the risk of patella dislocation. However, the positioning and direction of the VMO muscle fibres help to counteract this by drawing the kneecap inwards, or medially.
How to get a VMO?
Sitting on a chair with the knees bent, feel your VMO. Start to slowly straighten the knee and ensure the VMO contracts. Maintain the contraction throughout the movement as you fully straighten the knee and bend it again, do 10 reps. Repeat this several times daily until you can maintain a strong constant contraction 10 times in a row.
How to check for VMO?
To check the contraction of VMO Sit with your legs out in front of you and a rolled up towel under the injured knee (the knee should be slightly bent). Put your fingers over the area of VMO as shown in the picture.. Push your knee down into the towel. You will feel the muscle tightening under your fingers.
Why is VMO Important?
VMO is an active and dynamic stabiliser of the patella. In healthy, pain free individuals the fibres of VMO are active throughout the range of movement. In patients with patella (kneecap) problems the fibres contract in phases, out of time, weakly and fatigue easily.
What Should I Do About My VMO Problems?
Here the issue is "Cause or effect" Chicken or Egg... Sometimes a weak VMO can develop through bad training habits, but often the VMO becomes weak because of an underlying problem in the knee, of which there can be many. It is usually the first muscle to show signs of an underling problem, and this should not be ignored. Clearly if this is the case then strengthening VMO wont make the problem go away. You are best off getting the knee checked by Mr Willis-Owen first and making sure the important bits are in good order before trying to build up VMO. Knowledge is power! Have a look at some of the knee condition in the sports injuries pages to see if you can identify any problems that may have made your VMO waste away. Or go to the Contact Us page to arrange a knee check up.
What is the role of VMO?
The specific role of VMO is to stabilise the patella within its groove and to control of the ‘tracking’ of the patella when the knee is bent and straightened. Mis-firing and weaknesses in the VMO cause mal-tracking of the patella and subsequent damage to surrounding structures and aching pain. The key to solving this problem is both getting the timing of VMO right, and the relative strength compared with the rest of the quadriceps group.
How to get rid of VMO in the back?
Sit with your knee bent and a resistance band tied around your ankle. Keeping your back straight, slowly straighten your knee tightening the front of your quadriceps feeling for VMO. Then slowly return back to the starting position. Perform 3 sets of 10 repetitions provided the exercise is pain free.
How to maintain a strong VMO?
Maintain VMO contraction throughout the exercises and feel for it. Initially perform as many reps as you can while maintaining a strong constant contraction and gradually increase the number up to 20. Always feeling for the contraction.
What is quad activation failure (aka quad shutdown)?
Quad activation failure is the inability to squeeze or tighten your quadriceps. It’s not uncommon after major surgeries like an ACL surgery or a total joint replacement but can occur even with arthroscopy.
How to wake up your quad muscle
Quadricep activation failure or quad shut down means you have lost the ability to fire the muscle. To reverse this, it’s necessary to retrain the brain’s control over the muscle and then strengthen it. Follow these steps to activate your quad muscle.
Exercises to promote quad activation
If you don’t do anything to help the quad atrophy, it can slow down your recovery process. The following exercises can help maintain knee function and strength.
Schedule an appointment
Your well-being is important to us. Click the button below or call us to schedule an appointment with one of our orthopedic specialists. If your injury or condition is recent, you can walk right into one of our OrthoIndy Urgent Care locations for immediate care.
How to work VMO?
How to work your VMO: Isometric Contraction: Sitting on your bed or floor with legs out straight, place a towel underneath your knee. Flex your quads muscle with hip/leg slightly externally rotated. Hold contraction for 5-10 seconds, place your fingers on your VMO to ensure your quads muscle is activating and firing.
Where is the VMO located?
Structure: The VMO is a muscle located in the anterior (front) compartment of the thigh. The other three muscles that make up our quadriceps are the vastus lateralis, vastus intermedius and rectus femoris. The VMO originates from a continuous line of attachment along the thigh bone and inserts into the quadriceps tendon on the inside border ...
How to get a VMO muscle?
Step ups: Standing in front of a bench or chair, step up on to the platform and drive from the gluteal muscle, not from your toe. Ensure your knee is not buckling inwards and is forced/pushed out. Slowly step down making sure your knee is in a stable neutral position and your VMO muscle is contracted.
What is the best exercise for VMO activation?
The Seven Best Exercises For VMO Activation: Early Knee Rehab. Vastus Medialis Oblique (VMO) is one of four quadriceps muscles. Your VMO sits medially or on the inside of your thigh. Its primary function is to extend the knee. Structure: The VMO is a muscle located in the anterior (front) compartment of the thigh.
