Sports which do not use the knees?

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Bodhbh

Guru
Re: Kayaking. I've only been a couple of times, but I recall the instructor telling us he had had problem with one of his kneecaps pulling off to the side as he got in a car with the muscle imbalance it causes in the legs. Apparently you do use muscles in the legs along with core muscles to hold your position but they are only on one side of the legs. Might be a tale, I dunno :biggrin:

His sports of choice were climbing and kayaking. Very knotted, corded, knurly upper body, but little legs like a chimp. I didn't tell him that tho :biggrin:
 
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montage

montage

God Almighty
Location
Bethlehem
Cheers for the responses (most of them!)
I guess I will keep up the swimming, and possibly invest in a kayak as I live a 5min walk away from the sea anyway :biggrin:

Not so sure wheel chair basketballers will appreciate me turning up.
 

bonj2

Guest
polo (either the on horse version or the swimming version)
probably have to be fairly posh for the former though.
 
Lots of people suggest swimming as stress-free on the knees. It's impact-free in any case, but note that the breaststroke kick can cause trouble. The "whip kick", which features a rotation of the knee (thighs and knees still fairly close together, but your lower legs pointing to the side with your feet reasonably far apart) doesn't agree with everyone.

Keep the breaststroke distance relatively short and swim it at a leisurely pace if you're susceptible to knee pain. Swim your more vigorous bouts freestyle/front crawl, backstroke & occasionally fly if you can.

To make the swimming less boring, swim different strokes, and pick up a few training schedules with different workouts to avoid getting into a rut with continuous swimming at constant speed - sets of endurance swimming, some intervals, some sprints, some technique drills and so on.

Frankly, even that gets boring if you do it on your own. Teaming up with others who swim at rougly the same level as you do is the best way to enjoy swimming.
 

Spinney

Bimbleur extraordinaire
Location
Back up north
If kayaking gets to your knees (sitting in a fixed position for long periods of time is not always comfortable), try sit-on-tops as someone else has suggested, or you could try open canoes instead. I think you kneel in some kinds of open canoeing (so not good for the knees), but in some you definitley sit.
 
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