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Maintaining healthy joints is crucial for preserving your ability to move freely. Healthy joints contribute to your mobility, help you avoid pain, and support any movements you wish to perform. It is essential to protect your joints to maintain overall well-being. However, there are certain harmful habits that we often engage in unknowingly. Here are five behaviors that you should cease immediately to prevent accelerating joint aging.
Not Staying Hydrated
The majority of the body’s joints are surrounded by synovial fluid in what are known as synovial joints. This fluid serves as a lubricant and shock absorber for the joints, facilitating the delivery of nutrients and removal of waste products. The pivotal role of synovial fluid is predominantly water-based. Therefore, inadequate hydration can jeopardize all these vital functions. Adequate water intake maintains the viscosity of synovial fluid, enabling it to effectively safeguard the joints by absorbing impact and reducing friction between joint surfaces. Proper hydration is essential for ensuring that nutrients reach the joint cartilage appropriately while allowing waste products to exit the joint capsule. Without sufficient hydration, joints are more susceptible to wear and tear.
Not Sleeping or Resting Enough In Between Workouts
The body undergoes healing processes during periods of sleep and rest. Insufficient rest and sleep, particularly when coupled with regular exercise, hinder the body’s ability to repair itself, a fundamental requirement for reaping the benefits of physical activity. Sufficient sleep aids in reducing inflammation, regulating stress hormones, and facilitating proper tissue repair processes.
Not Eating Enough When Training
If you are not eating enough, your body is not supported. Your body needs energy (in the form of calories) to repair itself and to maintain proper function of all of its structures, like muscle, bone, connective tissue, etc. So much of the advice out there is to eat less and move more, but if you are not adequately fueling your body, it can lead to muscle loss, which can lead to joint instability and increased strain on the joints and nutrient deficiencies, which can lead to weakened structures and insufficient building blocks for regeneration and healing.
Not Warming Up Properly Before Working Out
Warming up prepares the body for what is ahead. Warming up helps to stimulate synovial fluid in the joints, which we know helps protect and cushion the joints. In addition, warming up before working out helps to increase elasticity in the muscles and tendons, which helps decrease the risk of injury, increases blood circulation, which means joints get more oxygen and nutrients, and prepares the nervous system for movement, which means your awareness of your movement is better which can help protect the joints. Warming up also helps to stimulate stabilizing muscles that help support the joint, allowing the work to go into the muscles, not the joints.
Ignoring Pain When Exercising
The era of “no pain, no gain” is officially over. Pain is one of the few ways our body can communicate with us and pain signifies that something is wrong. Either presently or in the past. When we don’t listen to these pain signals and keep pushing through an exercise even though it hurts, we could be doing damage to the body. Pain in the joints, specifically, can be a sign of inflammation, overuse, or damage to the joint (cartilage, surrounding ligaments, etc), so listening to that pain and responding appropriately can help keep your joints healthy.
Rachel Lovitt, Certified Personal Trainer: ACSM, Certified Mobility Specialist
