Have you ever had pain that made you stop everything? I have. Earlier this year, a panicked jump to avoid stepping on a snake left me with a severe calf strain. Everything in my life was on hold. Of course I immediately wondered: how can water exercise help? 

My mission: To find the quickest path to healing.

I needed to get out of pain and restore normal movement, fast. Summer was here and my husband and I had an upcoming vacation just 3 weeks away where we planned to hike, golf and enjoy the outdoors every day.

These are the steps I took to get me back to normal in quicker time than ever:

Using Water Exercise To Heal From Knee Pain

Step 1. Stand in water

Immediate pain relief can be felt simply by standing in water. The buoyancy and hydrostatic pressure create a secondary pump; no movement required and already your body is healing. I knew water could do this, but my injury made me fearful to take even a small step—the shooting pain was so intense. But I leaned into my knowledge and did it. And guess what? I found relaxation in an instant without any movement at all, and that’s when I knew healing was happening.

Step 2. Move your arms

Now you’re in the pool, move the arms slowly in all directions while keeping your feet on the ground. Moving the arms creates a wave of movement throughout the body, gently feeding a small amount of motion into the hips, knees, and ankles. For me, since even walking in water was not an option, the gentle stretching could be felt all the way down to my feet by just my moving arms. This allowed me to lose my fear of moving; an important first step in healing after injury.

Step 3. Close your eyes

Closing your eyes will help you feel more deeply; it’s that simple. When you’re moving your arms, your mission here is to find your feel-good range. That’s the idea of finding the movement your body needs by paying attention to how your body reacts and then adjusting the move accordingly. Maybe you need to make it bigger, smaller, or keep doing what you’re doing. What feels good? Do more of that (and closing the eyes is the key to that discovery).

Allowing a deep connection to feel-good movement is so powerful. further relaxing the mind and giving the body the right amount of movement to prevent chronic stiffness around the affected joint. Doing this allowed me to get in some core and upper-body strength work while still feeding gentle movement into my injured leg.

Step 4. Adjust your feet

With arms reaching in all directions, now it’s time to mix things up with subtle changes to your foot position; feet wide, narrow, and staggered with right/left foot forward is where I started. Remember to close your eyes and pay attention. The change in the feet might just be a difference of 1-2 inches, it’s a small change. What you should feel is the same feel-good sensation you felt earlier. Discover what you can do and make the move a little bigger each time, stretching a little deeper.

Step 5. Face a new direction

Oftentimes pools have a graded slope that moves from shallow to deep water. This slope can be an extremely valuable tool for stretching after injury. The foot points and flexes in the front to back motion and it also can roll side to side, all of which can be supported by the pool floor, and changeable depending on which way you’re facing. Explore and feel what feels good for you. This positioning of the foot might be the thing that gives you the ability to bend the knees a little more and swing the arms without pain.

Step 6. Imagine moving the legs

With a few progressions of moving the arms with different foot positions, now it’s time to imagine moving the affected leg. Repeat the arm movements with the eyes closed and imagine moving your legs. Oftentimes people who experience pain after injury can develop kinesiophobia – the fear of specific movement that may have contributed to their injury. Yet, this is the kind of movement that will need to be done in order to get to a full recovery. 

Imagine moving your leg as in the video below, and once you’ve done that, move onto step 7 where you’ll put that imagery into practice. 

Step 7. Stand on one leg

Now it’s time to test whether you’re ready to add more weight-bearing on the affected side. For this you’ll want to be in neck- to chest-deep water (with a goal of getting shallower as you can tolerate without pain). By standing on the affected leg, you’ve increased the weight bearing just a small amount and the leg still feels the safety of being grounded.

Now it’s time to add leg movement with the good leg. Similar to the effect of the arms movement, the moving leg is creating motion into the hip, knee and ankle of the standing leg. In my own journey, this exercise was out of the question when I was in the earlier steps, but was something I worked towards incrementally to help me fully recover. 

The takeaway

If you find yourself shuffling on land finding it impossible to walk normally. And even in the water, walking or jogging might not be an option. Start with these steps to let your body trust movement again. Close your eyes, go slow (pain is a great feedback) and move in the biggest feel-good distance. By following these exact steps, my range improved after each single session, and I’m confident you’ll have similar results.

Learn more about chronic pain and the 7 benefits of water exercise and give yourself the best opportunity to reduce pain and get stronger than ever.

Ready to get started? Learn more about how I help people like you reduce pain and live better, more mobile lives here. And when you’re ready, join me inside Wavemakers here.