Exercise and Arthritis Part 1/3

Exercise can become a source of frustration when your joints hurt. However, it is so essential to keep moving your body, and the minimum recommended by the American College of Sports Medicine is 150min/week of moderate physical activity. You may think it sounds counterintuitive, but exercise is important when you have arthritis because it can be great for managing symptoms and slowing down the progression of it.

Benefits of exercise for arthritis:

• Maintains cartilage health – the cartilage that covers the end of your bones (and thins with osteoarthritis or inflammation) acts like a sponge to retrieve nutrients. Movement allows the synovial fluid within your joints to circulate, nourish the cartilage and remove inflammation within the joint.

• Strengthens muscles – activity helps keep muscles that surround your arthritic joint strong. Strong muscles support your joint, reducing forces through the joint, and improves movement patterns.

• Maintains joint flexibility – if we don’t move, our joints and tissue (muscles) tend to stiffen and tighten up. This can prevent us from moving normally with ease and thus, causes more pain in our joints.

• Manages your body weight – Aside from the general health benefits of maintaining a healthy weight, it also reduces the forces through your weight bearing joints. Every pound increase forces by 4-6x through your hips and knees.

• Releases dopamine – dopamine is the “happy” hormone. It also helps counter some of those pain signals that are being sent to your brain from your arthritic joint.

The benefits of regular exercise for osteoarthritis far outweigh any negatives. Often it requires a slow approach to starting something new and learning how to understand your body cues. Stay tuned for Part 2 where we discuss types of exercise generally well tolerated for those living with osteoarthritis!