Ensure your joints stay healthy with these tips
Joint problems can greatly hinder your fitness goals, but all it takes is a little preparation and some knowledge to help ensure healthy joints.
Tackling any fitness challenge whether it’s running, walking or mountain climbing requires strength, stability and nimble footwork. Sudden, jolting movements can push your joints to the limit, and the odd niggle in your knees now could soon stop you in your tracks if left untreated.
Here fitness guru, Kristoph Thompson shares his top tips to keep your joints in tip top condition:
Tip 1. Maintain a healthy weight
Maintaining a healthy weight can be beneficial on joints. One study claimed that losing about a pound of weight delivers almost a four pound reduction in knee joint load for each step.
Tip 2. Warm up / cool down
Invest time to ensure the body is prepared for exercise by undertaking warm-up activities at the start of your session. The cool-down phase will help you to gradually reduce the intensity of activity and soreness in the joints and muscles.
Tip 3. Consider evidence-based supplementation
Choose a natural supplement that is backed by extensive clinical evidence to demonstrate its effectiveness. A supplement that has shown a lot of promise in recent years has been GOPO® Joint Health. It’s the only rose-hip derived supplement to be supported by numerous published studies and proven to work on difficult-to-treat conditions such as arthritis. The latest study showed that just 12 weeks of GOPO treatment decreased joint pain and improved the quality of movement in active adults.
Tip 4. Strengthen muscles and increase flexibility
Strength and flexibility Injury can occur when a joint is taken outside of its comfortable range of motion. Stronger stabiliser muscles and increased flexibility lessen the likelihood or severity of an injury. A good test of strength and flexibility is the wall squat. Stand facing a wall, with your feet just wider than hip-width and your hands on your temples. Try to squat down so your thighs are parallel to the floor, without your knees or any other part of your body touching the wall on the way up or down. Aim to complete five squats standing just an inch away from the wall.
Tip 5. Allow time for recovery
Knee injury can increase the chances of developing and aggravating osteoarthritis in many people. Should injury occur allow enough time for full recovery and seek professional advice if symptoms persist.
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