Knees

• Back flat against a wall
• Feet about a stride out in front, hip-width apart
• Toes pointing forward
• Arms folded, or resting by your sides

Slide slowly down the wall, bending your knees, until your thighs are somewhere on the way to parallel with the floor, and hold there. You're not chasing a deep squat, especially not early on. Slide down only as far as you can hold without any sharp complaint from the knee, and stay there for a spell, then slide back up. Rest, and go again.

• Knees tracking in line with the feet, never falling inward
• Heels planted, weight spread through the whole foot
• Depth judged by the knee, not by your pride

• Lie on your side, on the floor or a bed
• Knees bent up in front of you to about a right angle, knees and feet stacked one on top of the other
• Head resting on your lower arm
• Top hand on the floor in front of you, or on your top hip, to keep yourself steady

Keeping your feet touching and your hips stacked and still, lift your top knee up and away from the bottom one, opening your legs like a clam, as far as you can go without your hips rolling backward. Pause at the top, then lower the knee slowly back down, and go again. It's a small movement, so make it a slow and deliberate one.

• The work felt on the side and back of your top hip. That's the muscle we're waking up
• The hips staying stacked and dead still, not rolling back as the knee opens

• Sit on the front half of the seat
• Feet flat on the floor, about hip-width apart and pulled back a little towards you
• Toes pointing forward or a touch out

Lean your weight forward over your feet, then stand up, driving through the whole of both feet, without pushing off your hands if you can help it. Stand tall. Then lower yourself slowly back down under control, leading with your backside, sending your hips back to reach for the seat rather than letting your knees drop forward, all the way down, and sit right down onto the seat with your full weight. Not a quick tap of the seat and up again, a proper sit, letting yourself go heavy for a moment. Then stand back up from that dead stop, and go again.

• The knees tracking in line with the feet, roughly above the middle toes, and never falling inward
• Hips back, not knees forward
• Slow and deliberate, especially on the way down, with a real pause at the bottom

• Stand tall, then step one foot a good stride straight back, into a long split stance
• Front foot flat, back heel lifted
• Weight shared fairly evenly between the two feet, roughly fifty-fifty

Lower yourself straight down, thinking of dropping your back knee towards the floor rather than bending your front knee. Aim that back knee straight down and let the front leg bend to allow it. Go only as far as you can under control and without the knee complaining. Shallow is fine, especially to begin with, and the depth comes as the control does. Then drive back up through both feet to where you started, pushing up through the mid-foot and heel rather than the toes, and keeping the whole foot planted. Do all your reps in that stance, then swap your feet over.

• The front knee tracking in line with the foot as you lower and drive up, never caving inward
• Screw the front foot out into the floor, and you'll feel the hip take charge of holding the knee in line
• The whole of the front foot staying in contact with the floor, and the movement straight down and up