USANA Health Centre: Fitness Tips for Healthy Joints

As we get older, joint pain can often become part of life. Aching, stiffness and inflammation can keep you from enjoying life. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Keeping your joints healthy can be easy and fun.

You can’t change the joints you have, but to keep your joints in top shape, you can create strong muscles and healthy bones and cartilage. You can do this simply by eating a healthy diet and keeping fit.

Daily exercise can strengthen the muscles surrounding the joints, making you less prone to injuries and joint diseases. Low impact exercise is best, as this minimises the chances of injury. Try exercises like:

• Cycling: an aerobic workout that’s gentle on your joints and gives you great all-over muscle tone.
• Swimming: one of the best exercises for all fitness levels, swimming is low-impact for joints while quickly building fitness. And, with an indoor pool, you can swim in all weather.
• Light Aerobic exercises like yoga and tai chi: these can build core strength and muscle tone with low impact on joints.

As well as exercises, it’s important to eat a healthy diet, and get plenty of the right kinds of vitamins and supplements. Fish Oil and Glucosamine are two of the best natural supplements to promote healthy joints. Fish Oil contains heaps of omega 3 fatty acids to combat joint pain and inflammation, not to mention being great for a healthy heart and brain.

Glucosamine is found in our joints and helps our bodies produce cartilage. Taking Glucosamine helps joint healing and recovery, as well as easing pain from arthritis.

Vitamin D is vital to maintaining healthy joints as well. One of the best ways to get vitamin D is to exercise in the sun for at least 20 minutes a day. Exposing your skin to the sun while you exercise helps your body absorb more vitamin D – just be sure not to burn yourself.

However, often we don’t have the time or inclination to exercise outside (and the sun isn’t exactly shining at the moment, anyway) so taking a natural supplement high in vitamin D can drastically improve your joints health.

There are many other vitamins, minerals and herbs that benefit joint health, such as flax seeds and flax seed oil, fish oil, and turmeric. If you have serious joint problems, we recommend you see a doctor before beginning any new fitness regime.