For joint pain, keeping active can be effective

Joints connect your bones to each other, creating the movement and motions that allow your body to do all of the things you need it to do during the day. When you’re feeling good, you probably don’t think about all of those movements. But if you’re one of the14.6 million who surfer joint pain, then you are probably aware of every movement your joints make.

Joint pain can quickly go from being a minor inconvenience to making a major impact on your day-to-day life, especially if you aren’t sure how to cope with it. In fact, severe joint pain has been shown to result in high medical costs, loss of work time and diminished quality of life — both in the personal and professional sphere. At the very least, joint pain may likely have led you to be less active because you’re trying to avoid feeling pain. That’s normal, but the truth is that activity, when done correctly and in moderation, can actually ease joint pain.

Steps To Preventing Joint Pain During Exercise

You may not have control over the condition that is causing your joint pain, but you do have control over managing the pain and protecting yourself from making it worse. People used to think that one of the best ways to minimize joint pain was to stop exercising. But that’s simply not true. In fact, regular exercise can actually help to alleviate your pain by helping to stretch and move joints and the surrounding tendons and muscles. By keeping these parts loose, you can actually decrease your pain.

1. BUY GOOD SHOESEverything in your body is connected. That means if you’re exerting too much pressure on your feet and ankles, it can impact joints all the way up into your legs and hips. When you work out, make sure you are wearing shoes that cushion your joints and absorb the impact of whatever motions you are making as you work out.
2. DON’T FORGET TO WARM UPIt’s something you’ve been told since elementary school, and with good reason. Warming up your muscles is vitally important to working out safely. And, when you already have joint pain, working out with stiff muscles can actually make your pain worse. If you aren’t sure where to start, a few minutes of walking will do.
3. BREAK UP YOUR WORKOUTSMany people like to designate “arm days” and “leg days,” alternating between the muscle groups each day they workout. When you’re trying to prevent joint pain, it’s actually smarter to alternate between muscle groups during each workout, rather than putting a repetitive strain on one specific group. So, each time you work out, go back and forth between your upper and lower body. For example, after you complete a set of lunges, switch your focus to your arms with pushups or some free weights.
4. COMBINE HIGH AND LOW IMPACT EXERCISESHigh impact exercises are great when you want to lose weight, but too much of them and your joints won’t be thanking you later. However, some people shy away from low impact workouts because they believe they are less effective. That’s simply not true. Low impact exercise is a great way to lose weight and tone your muscles while protecting your joints from additional pain. The best thing to do is use a workout plan that incorporates both low and high impact exercises.
5. INCORPORATE THE POOL INTO YOUR WORKOUTSExercising in the pool takes a lot of pressure off of your joints. And, believe it or not, it’s a great way to get an intense workout when you don’t want to put a lot of strain on your joints. This is because the water provides you with more resistance, but there’s less gravity. So, your body is working hard against the resistance of the water, but it’s doing that without straining your joints and causing more pain.
6. MODIFY YOUR WORKOUTSWhen it comes to exercise, variety actually is a good thing. A lot of traditional exercises can be modified to provide better care for aching joints. For example, instead of doing planks with hands pressed into the ground, position yourself on your forearms, which takes the pressure off of your shoulders and wrists. You can also use props to help keep unnecessary pressure off of your joints, such as putting yoga blocks under your hands when you’re doing pushups
7. USE A FOAM ROLLERFoam rolling has been shown to help loosen fascia, the connective tissue that separates joints, organs and muscles in the body. When fascia are tight, joints are going to be more likely to ache. That’s where the foam roller comes in. When you use the foam roller, it brings more fluid into your fascia and keeps it loose and better able to move.
8. ALWAYS STRETCH WHEN YOU FINISHIt can be tempting to cut your workout short and skip stretching, but when you’re suffering from joint pain, doing this can actually increase your pain later on.
9. USE HEATSimply grab a hot towel or a heat pack and treat the areas where you’re feeling pain.
10. ANTI-INFLAMMATORY DIETBelieve it or not, what you eat has a huge impact on your joints. And, if you’re a person who regularly experiences joint pain, you may want to consider adopting an anti-inflammatory diet to ease some of your discomfort. The good news is that an anti-inflammatory diet isn’t really a diet at all.