Just so we’re all clear on the function, purpose, and importance of joints, joints are the points at which your bones meet and hinge much like each axis between the door and its frame, and since ‘joints’ rhymes with ‘points,’ you’ll find that easy to remember. Their purpose is to maintain the connections of all segments of the body while allowing various forms of flexible movement. Most importantly, you need joints in order to run, jump, limbo, twerk, and what-have-you. Much of what you do, therefore, to stay fit or even to capitalize on your fitness requires healthy joints. Many people exercise by jogging, swimming, doing aerobics, doing pushups, or all of the above. No matter what means you choose to exercise and stay fit, bad joints can make it impossible.

One might say that your fitness hinges on the wellness of your joints (see what we did there?). Harvard Health Publications reports that arthritis affects 20% of the American populace, which is quite a sizable chunk—1 in 5. The significance of arthritis, though, isn’t just in how many people are affected but, rather, in how joint pain is as immobilizing as joint stiffness if not more so. You’ll find yourself unable to be active either way, and there are loads of conditions that include joint pain in their myriads of symptoms. Anyone who has experienced these things can tell you that you don’t realize how important your joints are until something hinders your use, and you’ll find that staying active can become next to impossible due to discomfort or stiffness in joints that you’ve never once considered, which is why joint wellness is one of the most critical facets of fitness.

In order to make fitness easier on yourself in the future, it is incumbent upon you that you keep good control of your weight. Being overweight and especially being obese has an incredibly detrimental effect on so-called weight-bearing joints. These are the hips, the back, and especially the knees. Some people need chiropractic attention because of problems they caused by not taking measures to keep their weight within a healthy range. When you lose weight, you decrease the amount of regular pressure on those joints, which preserves their buoyancy and fitness for several more years so that you can keep exercising as you get older.

Exercise, of course, will help you regulate your weight, but there are certain types of exercise that physicians believe reduce joint swelling. Aerobics, for example, are low-impact exercises that increase your heart rate without pounding your joints. This is the benefit of cycling and swimming because you give your body a great workout and raise your heart rate plenty without having to pound your knees, hips, or lower back. If you sit in an office for much of the day, this might be especially pertinent to your lifestyle whether you’re overweight or not because prolonged stillness day-in and day-out causes stiffness in your joints, which can manifest as joint pain or lead to swelling.

The idea is most definitely to take care of your joints. Joint problems tend to be the first hindrance to fitness as people get older because they belabor the exercise process. They often do so before one even considers himself or herself old. At Green Oaks Spine & Sport we often address fitness from a chiropractic perspective, which is why we can’t help on point out how imperative it is that you take care of your joints in your fitness endeavors.

– Submitted by Mersad from gospineandsport.com.