to heal: target above and below, hold ranges

Full disclosure, my right knee is still a work in progress. But compared to last year im fucking superman. What helps my back more or less applies here too:

- strengthening the muscles above and below the impacted area.

- exploring ranges of motion by holding positions.

Strengthening above and below is something you should be doing anyways. I.e. normal ass strength training. You should not have weak or perpetually tight muscles. 

For the knee

- Above: quads, hip flexor, glutes, hamstrings. 

- below: tibs, calves.

My big hangup was that I could not FEEL the muscles listed even when I did exercises that targeted them. The wrong muscles would get tight and hurt trying to protect my knee. The panacea ended up being isolation or Banded movements. It isn't enough to spark major hypertrophy, but it is enough to get you from suck to kind of ok. And kind of ok is a great starting point when you are coming back from an injury. 

Apply the same logic to the back:

- above: t spine, lats.

- below: glutes, hamstrings, quads, hip flexor, ql

Holding positions is a little more art than science. You are SLOWLY getting your body used to deep ranges of motion. Do not be hesitant to use assistance. Getting in and out of a position pain free consistently is a major win. None of the Instagram mobility freaks you see were able to juat do that. They had to practice for years. So do you.