Exercise Helps Relieve Arthritis Pain and Stiffness

If you’re suffering from arthritis pain, exercise might be the last thing you want to do. But exercise actually reduces joint pain, increases strength and flexibility, and helps combat fatigue. Even a moderate fitness plan can ease your pain and help you maintain a healthy weight.  

Keeping your muscles and surrounding tissue strong is crucial to maintaining support for your bones. Not exercising weakens those supporting muscles, creating more stress on your joints.

Exercise can not only help improve your arthritis pain without hurting your joints, but a regular fitness routine can also:

• Strengthen the muscles around your joints
• Help you maintain bone strength
• Give you more energy to get through the day
• Make it easier to get a good night’s sleep
• Help you control your weight
• Improve your balance

Talk to your doctor about what types of exercises are best for your type of arthritis and which joints are involved. Your doctor, physical therapist or personal trainer can work with you to find the exercise plan that gives you the most benefit with the least aggravation of your joint pain.

Some of the exercises to alleviate arthritis pain and stiffness may include:

Range-of-motion exercises

These exercises relieve stiffness and increase your ability to move your joints through their full range of motion. These exercises might include movements such as raising your arms over your head or rolling your shoulders forward and backward. In most cases, these exercises can be done daily.

Strengthening exercises

These exercises help you build strong muscles that help support and protect your joints. Weight training is an example of a strengthening exercise that can help you maintain or increase your muscle strength.

Aerobic exercise

Examples of low-impact aerobic exercises that are easier on your joints include walking, bicycling, swimming and using an elliptical machine. Moderate-intensity aerobic exercise is the safest and most effective if it’s done most days of the week, but even a couple of days a week is better than no exercise.

Other activities

Any movement, no matter how small, can help. Daily activities such as mowing the lawn, raking leaves and walking the dog count.

If you have any questions about arthritis or any other topic, please give us a call @ 714-282-9400 or drop us a note .