It is impossible to keep your knees healthy and in perfect shape even when you are getting older. What’s important is that you know the secrets in maintaining healthy knees. Prevention is really better than cure so if you are still not suffering from any knee problem, you must already start to follow these tips in keeping your knees healthy.
First tip is to warm up before doing any type of activity. It is very simple and it allows the synovial fluid to flow through your joints so you won’t experience more friction while working out. Remember, as you jump or run or do squats, your knee is absorbing a lot of the force and in time, it can deteriorate.
2nd, stay in shape and maintain a healthy weight. The more weight you carry around the more your knee joints get stressed.
3rd maintain good ankle mobility. Exercise your ankles to increase its mobility as the ankle’s function affects the health of the knee. Start by standing with your feet just a short distance (a few centimeters) away from the wall then keep the heels on the ground while trying to touch the wall with your knee. Repeat this several times while stepping back a little each time. Calf stretching is also necessary if you are feeling some tightness.
4th, improve hip function. Try some glut exercises to improve your hip function as this will ease the knees. Your hips can absorb more impact thus decreasing the stress on your knees.
5th, increase hip mobility. This is similar with improving the ankle mobility. If your hip moves well, you can squat in the right position without having your knees absorb the most weight and stress.
6th, diet supplements! If you’re an active athlete or perhaps you carry weights or go to the gym, most probably you are putting more stress to your knees than normal. This can deteriorate the knees but this can be prevented by taking supplements. Fish oil supplements have great benefits and also have anti inflammatory effects on your joints. Glucosamine and Chondroitin are also great diet supplements to keep your bones and joints healthy and strong.
7th, stop when it starts to hurt. If you’re suffering from knee pain and it hurts when you do a certain action then you should stop it. Whatever is causing you pain could further add more damage and degeneration to the knee. Try to slowly integrate the action as you figure out the problem. If you are injured, doing the action won’t do you any good but this doesn’t mean you should stop it forever.
8th, stretch! Stretching is great for relaxing your muscles after an activity. Your muscles should recover after an activity to prevent fatigue.
9th, cycling for rehabilitation. If you do suffer from knee pain or injury, cycling is a great exercise to improve joint mobility. It is a knee friendly exercise with very low impact.
10th, muscle endurance is important. By increasing the endurance of your muscles, they won’t get into fatigue quickly. Low impact cardiovascular activities would do the trick. Improving muscle endurance during knee rehabilitation will also speed up the healing process.
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