How To Move Without Pain

What can I do

adults walking in snow

Best Ways to Maintain Joint Health and Reduce Joint Pain in Winter

It is important to exercise during wintertime, whether osteoarthritis is present or not. Not only because it makes you warm, but it can help boosts the immune system to fight seasonal flus & colds. The most important component of an exercise program is finding something you enjoy. If you’re having fun, it’ll be more likely for you to stick with it. Read 7 of the best ideas to keep your joints healthy, loose and strong all winter long.

Do I need an x-ray if my joints hurt?

Approximately 25% of adults will have knee pain at some point in their life. The pain may be from an injury, like a fall or a twisting movement. The pain could also develop slowly over time from changes in muscle strength, ligament stability, or the movement of the patella (kneecap) as the knee bends and straightens. Most of us will wait out the pain, hoping it goes away on its own with a little rest, a little medication, and a little icing. X-rays can detect bone fractures, bone alignment with other bones, certain tumors and other abnormal masses, pneumonia, some types of injuries, calcifications, and foreign objects.

What is a hip labral tear?

Hip impingement, more specifically, Femoral acetabular impingement (FAI) can develop for many different reasons; however, the exact cause is often unknown. There are two specific types of FAI that can occur, one due to the shape of the femoral head and the movement within the acetabulum (joint socket), and the other from an overgrowth of the anterior (front) hip tissues causing a pinching of the tissues during certain movements… but more about that later.

Improving the strength of your lower extremities and trunk will help to reduce added stress and overworked muscles around the hip. Strengthening the hips and trunk can reduce abnormal forces on the already injured joint.

4 Squat Modifications to make sure your knees don’t hurt

Squats are great exercise. The movement is familiar and functional, a movement we complete every time we sit in a chair, walking down stairs, or get into bed. Strengthening within our legs from hips to ankles is needed to complete the motion correctly. If squatting is a painful activity for you, try these ideas for modifications so you can work to strengthen your legs without pain.

Bad Habits that affect your Joints

Joint pain can seem like it comes on at random, with no specific injury, but Joint pain doesn’t begin for no reason. The body doesn’t initiate inflammation without a cause, whether it’s a systemic illness such as lupus, or joint changes like a meniscus tear or muscle sprain. Truthfully, we just don’t pay attention to our bodies well enough (in my opinion). We cast off a stiff neck to sleeping in a bad position, or low back pain to picking something up awkwardly. Understanding your joints, muscles and the pains we get when we are active (or not active)is instrumental in knowing what your body needs when we are in pain. Knowing if our joints need to move and stretch, or rest and recover is an integral part in our joint health now and in the future. Admitting to ourselves that we aren’t always the best to our bodies goes a long way in understanding our joints, our body’s response to activity, food, smoking and inactivity.

How to make Bones Strong

Osteoporosis is a progressive loss of bone density that occurs mainly as we age but also can be due to many systemic or disease processes within our bodies. Most reach peak bone density by 30 years old, where the body’s ability to replace bone cells equals the body’s depletion (breakdown) of bone cells. After age 30, bone remodeling continues, but you lose slightly more bone mass than you gain. Once the cycle is uneven long enough or bone depletes to a certain level, osteopenia can be diagnosed.

What you can do for your arthritis

When you were told you had arthritis – did you instinctively think – “I’m going to be in pain forever.”

You’re not alone. A lot of people feel this way.

In truth, many times the pain you feel isn’t because of arthritis, it’s because the muscles around the joints are weak and aren’t able to adequately absorb physical stress during activity.

Your inactivity could be making you weak! Causing more joint stress and increasing pressure on the joints! Your lack of challenging your body is making you weak and painful.