Training To Strengthen Your Joints

About one-third of all adults experience joint pain. Your joints are where two or more bones meet. They allow you to move, and they also provide support to various structures. Yet, when pain occurs at these areas, it can severely impact your day-to-day and your overall quality of life. Simply put, it isn’t fun nor is it ideal.

Luckily, regular strengthening of the muscles around your joints can help combat and prevent joint pain. You don’t have to persevere. You can do something about it. In this article, we dive into the importance of strengthening your joints, three simple exercises that can help, stretches you can do to help with joint pain, and foods you can eat to help your joints heal. Let’s dive right in!

The Importance of Strengthening Your Joints

Your joints need support. This support comes in the form of muscles. Around each joint in the human body are various muscles or groups of muscles. For example, the knee has the hamstring and quadriceps above it, along with the calf below it. These are key areas to focus on if you’re experiencing knee pain.

However, there is another layer to this pain. Sometimes, muscle imbalances can cause pain. These imbalances can even cause a chain reaction.

For instance, if you’re experiencing weakness in your ankle muscles, this may carry up into hip pain. Why? Because the lower body lacks support and everything in the body is connected. Ankle imbalance scan offset the hip or other areas of the body, resulting in pain.

Overall, reducing pain in all your joints requires you to take on a full-body approach when it comes to strength training. Strengthening exercises can not only help reduce pain, but also prevent future aches and pains from happening.

3 Simple Joint Strengthening Exercises

So, what exercises should you try? The following three exercises cover simple strengthening moves you can do at home for your knee, ankles, and hips.

1. The Wall Squat

The wall squat helps strengthen your hamstrings, quadriceps, calves, core, and more. This contributes to strong and durable knees. Here’s how to do it:

●Find a wall space in your home that you can lean your back on.

●Brace your core by tightening the muscles in between your hip bones.

●Slowly bend your knees and slide your body down the wall.

●Stop when your knees become bent at a 90-degree angle.

●Hold for 5-10 seconds, then pushback up to your starting position.

●Repeat this for 8-10 repetition sand 2-3 sets.

2. One-Leg Balance

This exercise doesn’t just improve your balance. It also helps strengthen those little stabilizing muscles around your ankles. Here’s how you do it:

●Find a wall or a supportive table or chair to stand near. You can place one hand on the wall, chair, or table for support if needed, but try not to rely on it.

●Lift your right leg and stand on your left leg for as long as you can.

●Try to aim for 30 seconds to start, then 45 seconds, then a minute (this will improve over time and with more practice).

●And don’t forget to do this exercise on both sides. Try to perform three repetitions on each foot.

3. Glute Bridge

The glute bridge can help strengthen your glutes, which help support your hips, lower spine, and pelvis. Here’s how you do it:

●Lay face up on a comfortable surface.

●Bend your knees and plant your feet flat on the ground.

●Slowly lift your hips up and off the ground.

●As you do this, squeeze your glutes.

●Hold for 5-10 seconds, then lower.

●Repeat 10-12 times and for 2-3sets.

Stretches to Help Strengthen Your Joints

Stretching can help relieve joint pain by helping improve your joints’ range of motion. This enables you to move - without fear of pain or injury.

Some common stretches that can help strengthen your joints and relieve joint pain include:

●Child’s pose

●Knee-to-chest stretch

●Hamstring stretch

●Cat-cow stretch

●Shoulder towel stretch

●Piriformis stretch

While you by no means need to do these stretches every day, a combination of stretches two to three times a week can help combat joint pain and keep your joints healthy and strong.

Foods to Help Rebuild and Reduce Inflammation

But what about the food you eat?

Surprisingly, the Western and modern diet is very inflammatory. Yet, you can include certain foods to help improve pain and reduce inflammation. Some great examples include:

●Bone broth

●Garlic

●Ginger

●Berries, such as strawberries

●Good sources of protein, such as seafood and fatty fish

●High sources of vitamin C, such as orange juice.

Where can you improve? Can you be exercising and eating to reduce your joint pain? The answer is that you likely can! Through a few simple movements and food changes, you can reduce pain and improve your entire life. Say goodbye to joint pain for good!