I would expect that, if you are in correct posture, ATS would hurt you or dislocate things no more often than regular walking (having severely dislocated a knee while just walking, I know that knees can go in all kinds of ways). Things to be wary of are taxeem, where you want to make sure you're using your obliques and not your knees to generate movement, and anything in the hip bump family, where aiming to have your weight evenly distributed left to right will reduce your odds of hosing your knees (or your back!).

In addition to yoga, I practice a joint health routine called Intu-Flow that is fantastic for joint mobility & recovery: www.amazon.com/INTU-FLOW-.../B000M9BU2Q

hi! aside from ats, i'm also a ballet & modern dancer... and have dislocated my right knee twice! woo! i was told to keep my thighs like an olympic runner's. that means quadriceps & hamstrings, with a little bit of adductor & abductor work too.

i lift weights twice a week, usually doing leg extensions, leg curls, presses or squats. you can also do lunges holding weights, and adductor/abductor exercises with a cable machine or theraband to strengthen the assisting muscles on the inside & outside of the leg. oh! you can also do step-downs to work on stabilizer muscles. you find a step somewhere, and SLOWLY step down off of it, as slow as you can, before transferring the weight to the bottom step. and, you can also stand on stabilizer/wobble boards to help. note, these aren't exercises for a recently dislocated knee, but a healed & healthy maintenance program. i had other, easier, exercises for just after my knee had been hurt.

whichever way your kneecaps tends to go during a dislocation, you need to build the opposite side of the leg. also, a knee brace for rehearsal or makeup-colored ace bandage can do great for slight stability & swelling. always wrap ace bandages from the bottom of the leg upward. i use a 4" wide ace wrap for the leg/knee. also, never underestimate the ice pack after a hard rehearsal! i have gel icepacks that mold to my knee, and if i'm at a camp or something intense, they're packed with me. i try to avoid pain medicine, and only reserve that for intense pain & swelling. pain is your body's way of telling you something's wrong, and you don't want to silence that voice and further damage things. i also have some dance kneepads for kneeling/ floorwork, though i still avoid drops. these can be found at any dance shop or discountdance.com.

remember, that since the knee itself has no muscles, it's all those leg muscles that attach to the knee that are the key to knee health. you also might want to look into herbal & mineral supplements for joint health. i used to take something, but later switched to a multivitamin that has the same amount of that mineral.... i forget the name...

hope this helps! feel free to PM me if you have more questions, and i'll see if i can answer! all that dance, kinesiology, and physical therapy has to come in handy sometime, eh? good luck! ~kelela ^_^

Thanks, everyone, for the suggestions. I suspected some of the strengthening exercises mentioned, but will try to incorporate most into my routine.

I do have to watch the stretching, though, because my joint insertion points are huge the way they are, and, as I learned from a faulty prescription for lots of stretching to counter my tendinitis when it was first diagnosed a long time ago, typical stretching sets me up for more dislocations. (It was amusing, doing grad-school auditions, and having to stop playing to shove my thumb back into its place.) But I'm also learning that I cannot do without some kinds of stretching, so I'm trying to do more gradual, gentle, muscle-focused stretching (meaning if I feel the bones give too much, I'll stop).

Really, I think a more serious incorporation of strength training has been missing for far too long in my regimen, so I'm hoping it will help on a lot of levels.

Thanks again!