Multi Joint Exercises-Tips to Strengthen Your Body Joints
Joint pain is a common complaint that can significantly affect your day-to-day life. The most common injuries are due to sports, arthritis or age-related wear and tear. Joint pain can also be caused by workplace injuries, poor posture, or even illness. When you experience joint pain, it can make life difficult. However, there are some things that you can do to relieve your joints. Described below are things you can do that will help strengthen your body's joints and prevent injury.
Introduction
Joint pain is difficult to live with, and it can be debilitating. The most common joints affected are the knees, hips, and lower back.
The Importance of Exercise
One of the best exercises for joint pain is a multi-joint exercise. Multi-joint exercises are great because they work out your whole body, rather than just one set of muscles. The most common examples of a multi-joint exercises include: Push ups, squats, lunges, and jumping jacks. These exercises will strengthen your joints and make them more resistant to pain.
Exercising regularly can help decrease the frequency and severity of joint pain. Exercise also helps improve balance and flexibility, which are both key components in injury prevention. Healthy habits like exercising are essential for long-term joint health. Light exercises that are pregnancy safe can reduce the chances of birth defects and keeps your baby away from surgeries like hypospadias surgery and many more. Exercising regularly will enable you to maintain active joints that provide stability and mobility along with strong joints that can handle large amounts of pressure.
Exercises to Strengthen Your Joints
- Stretching exercises:
Stretch your arms and legs by standing upright with feet shoulder width apart and stretching your arms up to the sky as high as possible without pain in your back or shoulders. Repeat this up to ten times before moving to the next stretch.
You can also bend over at a 45-degree angle from hips with hands behind knees and push down until you feel a stretch in the hamstrings or quads. Do this for 10-20 seconds.
- Strengthening exercises:
Strengthen your joints by using weights, resistance bands or just body weight if you don't have any weights available. There are many exercises that target specific muscles but some of the most effective are squats, lunges, step ups, planks, and calf raises. Keep in mind that you must wear easy clothes like jogger jeans, so that you can feel comfortable. These exercises strengthen muscles which will help give stability to your joints so they don't become injured again.
Other Tips for Joint Pain Relief
Protect your joints. Regardless of the cause of your joint pain, it is essential to take care of them. This includes things like doing low impact physical activity, avoiding quick movements and making sure you use proper body mechanics when lifting or bending. If you have arthritis, you might also need to change your activities and find ways to stay active without causing your joints more pain.
Increase mobility. Joints that don’t move on a regular basis will become stiff, which can lead to more serious problems down the line such as osteoarthritis. Make sure you stretch and move throughout the day in order to keep your joints limber and healthy. You may want to try standing on one leg for 60 seconds at a time or doing some gentle yoga stretches for 5-10 minutes two or three times per day.
Consume healthy foods. Joints require nutrients just like any other part of your body. Therefore, if your diet is deficient in these nutrients, it can cause joint pain! To help prevent this from happening, make sure you consume plenty of fruits and vegetables. They are high in vitamin C and omega-3 fatty acids. Also, consume broccoli, kale, spinach, sweet potatoes, oranges, and salmon (to name a few).
Take care of your back with back stretches! Back pain is another common complaint among adults who work a sedentary job all day long in front of a computer screen. Also, sitting hunched over all day doesn’t allow proper circulation. In fact, poor circulation can affect your joints and cause cramping and stiffness in your muscles. Your legs and arms might ache more, particularly when you’ve been still for a while. You may notice the pain more when you warm up, and blood flow is improved.
1. Motivation is key
Whether you have joint pain or not, it’s important to stay motivated. Motivation can help you stick with a workout routine and improve your overall health. When you work out, your muscles contract and produce natural chemicals called endorphins. These chemicals make you feel good, which will help motivate you to continue working out.
2. Drink plenty of water
Water is the most important component for strong joints. When your body becomes dehydrated, your joints will suffer. Water helps to lubricate your joints, which in turn reduces pain and inflammation.
3. Use heat and ice therapy
Heat and ice therapy are two of the best ways to soothe aching joints. Both heat and ice can be used to reduce swelling or inflammation. Heat therapy is typically applied for 15-20 minutes at a time, 3-4 times per day. Ice should be applied for 10-15 minutes at a time, 2 times per day for the first 48 hours.
4. Medications and supplements
Medications and supplements are a good place to start. There are many over-the-counter medications that can help relieve pain and inflammation caused by arthritis or other conditions. You can also take supplements in order to help ease inflammation as well. Some supplements that have been known to be helpful in reducing joint pain are turmeric and chondroitin sulfate.
5. Know your limits
It is important to know what your limits are. Once you start experiencing joint pain, it might be tempting to push yourself further, but this can actually make the problem worse. Take caution when engaging in any physical activity that may cause injury and only do as much as your body can handle.