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The swimming and gym routine sound good.

Here's something I wrote up recently for a friend with leg circulation problems. It's sort of geared towards that but you may find it applicable, or you could modify it to focus on your knee or whatever joints you want to work on.

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Introduction to Leg Stretching

Upper Body Warm-up: Neck, Shoulders, Face, Upper Chest

For several reasons, it’s a good idea to stretch the rest of the body along with the legs, so here is an upper-body warm-up to start with.

First of all, smile :) Smiling is one of the best ways to relax your face muscles and the rest of your body. If you smile while you’re doing these exercises, they will prove more effective. Also you’ll find that when you smile while you’re not doing these exercises, it will remind your body of the sense of being relaxed during these exercises, so you can use smiling as a way to trigger a sense of relaxation.

Now to get the blood flowing to head, start by stretching the neck and shoulders:

Bend your head forwards and hold for a few deep breaths--at least 3 and up to 10.

Bend your head backwards and look up and hold for 3-10 breaths. Be careful not to bend so far you get dizzy or lose balance! To be on the safe side you might want to try this sitting down until you get used to it.

Bend your head to each side, one side at a time, and hold 3-10 breaths as before. (For the rest of the instructions below, assume the 3-10 breaths holding period unless specified otherwise.)

Turn your head and look to each side, one side at a time.

Now the shoulders:

Shrug your shoulder up and hold.

Shrug your shoulders down and hold.

Hold your arms out to your sides with your palms down.

Hold your arms out to your sides with your palms down.

Hold your arms over your head.

(You may also choose to stretch your wrists while you’re stretching your arms, especially if you get sore from typing like I do. Flex your wrists forward, backwards, and rotated gently to the sides (for this last one, use your free hand to flex your wrist back towards you and then rotate it slightly towards the outside of your arm, gently so as not to strain yourself).)

By now your neck and shoulders should feel more relaxed and there should be more blood flowing to your head. This is a good time to take advantage of the increased blood flow to stretch your facial muscles. The ones around your eyes are especially important for a sense of overall relaxation.

Now massage the top of your head with your fingers.

Then massage the base of your skull.

Now rub your temples.

Wipe your palms across your forehead.

Wipe your palms up and down your face.

Yawn to stretch your jaw muscles. Then swallow a few times to relax down into your neck and upper chest.

Close your eyes for a few deep breaths, holding your palms over your eyes. This is also a good exercise to do by itself for up to 10 minutes to improve blood circulation to the eyes.

Open your eyes wide, opening your jaw in a yawn at the same time. Then blink a number of times. This is also good to do for your tear ducts.

Move your eyeballs in various directions, looking up and holding it; down; to each side, one side at a time; as if you’re alternating between looking at something near to you and something far away; and in circles.

Take some extra deep breaths to feel your nostrils and cheek muscles stretch.

Click your teeth together a few times and swallow, and feel the effect in your ears, neck, and upper chest. Pucker your lips and then stretch your mouth wide to help relax the muscles at the sides of your jaw.

As you’re relaxing your jaw and neck, you’ll feel an increased awareness of your upper chest muscles, which are also important to relax. To stretch these, first pull your arms back and puff your chest out, to stretch the muscles across the front of your chest. Then reverse this by rolling your shoulders forward and caving your chest in. Hold your arms to the side and twist slightly to get the sides of your chest. You can also hold your arms diagonally in a straight line. After doing this, take some deep breaths and feel your upper chest fully expand.

Stomach

Now that your upper body is warmed up, it’s time to move towards your lower body and legs. Just as you stretched your upper chest, you also want to stretch your stomach. Bend forwards and backwards, turn to each side, and bend diagonally. Then take some deep breaths, feeling your lower abdomen filling and emptying completely with each breath. This will help relax the muscles around your internal organs as well as your stomach muscles per se, which is good for your internal circulation. Because of this, spend some time just taking deep abdominal breaths. You can do this for a while, up to 10 minutes, in either a lying, seated, kneeling, or standing posture. Standing is best because the force of gravity works with you, but it’s also more strenuous because your leg muscles do more work, making it a more advanced exercise; I will describe how to do this more later, but basically you stand in a relaxed way so that your upper body is relaxed and your knees are bent slightly to receive your weight, allowing your stomach to expand more fully with each breath because it’s not holding up as much weight from your lower body. You can apply the same principle if you do this while lying, sitting, or kneeling: just let go with your upper body and let your weight drop all the way into your lower body with each breath, so that your abdomen is allowed to expand fully with each breath.

Lower Back and Sides

Now that you’ve stretched the front of your stomach area, you should also stretch your lower back and sides.

There are several ways to stretch the lower back. One of the good ones is to kneel down with your feet folded under you, bend forwards with your arms trailing out behind you, and lower your face to the ground to hold for a few deep breaths. You can also try this with your arms stretched out in front of you or pulled in under you, which will each get slightly different muscle groups. Sitting this way will also stretch your ankles (see below on ankles).

The reverse of this exercise is to start in the same starting position, kneeling with your feet folded under you, and bend backwards so that you’re looking up towards the ceiling. However this can be a bit strenuous if you’re a beginner, so an easier way to move in the same direction is to lie on your stomach as you look up to pull your head off the ground, bend your knees to fold your feet back towards you, and reach up to grab your ankles and hold yourself there for a few breaths.

Also stretch the sides of your waist by turning to each side.

Hips

You can stretch your hips both from a standing and a sitting/lying position. I recommend beginning from a standing position in the following manner:

Shift your weight to one leg, and flex the weightless leg forwards and backwards (which will look sort of like you’re standing on your toes on that foot, but you’re really just balancing on your toes with your weight on the other leg). Then move your knee towards you and away from you to move your hip in and out (which will look sort of like Elvis dancing). Also move your knee around in circles to rotate your hip socket.

Stretch each leg in this manner.

For a more strenuous stretch, sit on the ground with one leg crossed in front of you and step the other foot over its opposite hip (i.e., over the hip of the leg that’s crossed in front of you). For additional stretch while doing this, turn your upper torso to look in the direction opposite the side of your body your foot is stepped over on.

Backs of Knees/Calves

Some of the above exercises will have also warmed up the backs of your knees and your calves. For additional stretching of these areas, try these:

Just as before you shifted your weight to one leg and flexed your hip forwards and backwards, do the same now with an emphasis on feeling the stretch in the back of your knee. Also rotate in circles. You can go side to side a bit but not too much, since your knees unlike your hips don’t really move in that direction.

For the calves, lower each leg up and down, like you were about to stand on your toes with your weight shifted to one leg. You can also actually stand on your toes with both legs at once.

After this, sit on a bed or couch with one foot on the ground and the other stretched out in front of you. Bending from the waist, reach towards your feet and grab your leg to hold on so you can stretch your hamstring. Don’t try to strain if you can’t reach all the way to your feet. The purpose is to stretch the backs of your legs, not your back; if you strain you’ll actually be stretching your back rather than your legs. Just relax and bend as far as you feel comfortable, and hold it a few deep breaths. You’ll find the longer and more often you do this exercise, gradually you’ll be able to stretch progressively farther.

Ankles

Sitting with your feet folded under you as described above will help stretch your ankles. For additional stretching, shift your weight to one leg and flex the ankle of your free leg forwards, backwards, and rotated in circles. As with your knees, you can’t really get much sideways motion with your ankles, so it’s sufficient to go forwards and backwards and in circles.