Cardio but knee problems

If someone has a knee problem (ie lack of cartilage in one knee) what's a good cardio workout? I'm thinking... shadow boxing?

Tips please...

 

Shadow boxing is definately helpfull, both cardio and skillset wise, but have you thought about swimming? It's a great full body workout. There is very little stress on the body and it's good for the heart/lungs.

 

Hm... Problem is, money is tight with my friend. A pool really isn't in her family's budget.

 

So they can't even go to the local pools?

 

Too crowded to actually be able to swim. Heck, you can barely move.

 

The joys of living 5 minutes from the beach and 1 minute from the river.

 

:cry: Why do I have to live in Western New York!?

 

exercise bike or stairmaster shouldn't be too hard on the knees. since you live in newyork, biking for fitness won't get you very far, since you'll be stuck in a traffic jam 3/4 of your time on the bike, which is why i recommend an exercise bike.

 

Stairmaster can be one of the worst.

Best: Elliptical machine
Next Best: Bike

Treadmills, running, etc are at the bottom of the pile. Trust me, just coming off of two knee injuries

 

Indeed, running is out.

Swimming is good.

Apart from that try something like the tabata method for good cardio, if you do a search there should be plenty of info on here somewhere.

 

Swimming would work and yes shadow boxing is good too.

 

Be careful with the shadowboxing, btw. Unless you now what kind of injury you have (and this is the part where we ask if you've seen a physician yet...), lateral movements can really play havok with a knee injury.

 

I can't use an exercise bike at all; something about them actually causes me pain in one knee. Perhaps it's the way I sit. Oddly enough, 'real' biking causes me no trouble.

Not sure I'd advise using the stairmaster, either. Step motions, while generally good for you, if you have an existing knee problem they're generally likely to cause a lot of pain and perhaps some additional damage.

How about rowing?

 

I avoid excerice bikes lik the clap.
They limit the movement of the knee which seams to do more bad than good after a while. I know my knees ache when I'm riding.

 

I don't think rowing would be very good on the knees. Kinda the same idea as the stairmaster...

 

We live Western New York. A small suburb. Biking is no problem. I'll recommend that.

 

Yeah, I did wonder that, though I find that rowing isn't too bad on my knees at all. The repetitive motion of contracting and extending the leg to push your body backwards and forwards on a seat is, I should imagine, significantly less stressful than it would be pushing your entire bodyweight upwards on a step.

I can't see how it would be any worse than cycling, at any rate.

 

ooops. my bad. i actually meant to say elliptical. i get those 2 machines mixed up sometimes.

 

Aquatuctics

 

swimming and shadowboxing

actually i had a scope done on my right knee 6 weeks ago. now that im back to training im just gonna do a whole lot of shadowboxing for cardio