Knee pain is a typical condition that can happen to anyone regardless of age. The common cause of knee injuries is the lifting of heavy objects, low flexibility, and poor muscle condition. This often leads to the inflammation of the joints, which can further cause minor pain to permanent structural problems, such as torn cartilages or ligament damage.
Improving your knees’ durability
Your knees are the largest joints in your body. This is because they carry the full brunt of your body weight that’s pressed down by gravity. If you’re not careful, the build-up of your knee’s wear and tear can lead to structural conditions that will require surgery to fix.
To avoid experiencing knee problems, here are three practical ways to prevent your knees from getting injured:
- Perform stretching regularly
One of the leading causes of knee injuries is having poor flexibility. Doing stretches that prioritise the hamstring, calves, and quadriceps muscles remove the pressure that your kneecaps experience daily. This helps improve your flexibility, which increases your joints’ protection from developing medical conditions due to over and underuse.
Step-ups, straight-leg lifts, and hamstring curls are simple yet effective stretching techniques to improve your flexibility. You can also build on your hips with butterfly stretches to lessen their rigidity to divide the load on your knees.
- Exercise your lower body
Exercising is an excellent way to build up your joints’ strengths. Strength training, such as those that focus on building muscle mass on your quadriceps and hamstrings, can increase your pain tolerance on conditions, such as arthritis
Unfortunately, some people have issues with exercising because they may have structural problems or other conditions that prevent them from consistently working out. The key to having the right amount of exercise is in knowing your limits.
If you have these concerns, you can do non-impact aerobic exercises that aren’t too heavy on the knees. Walking on level ground, doing routine training on an elliptical machine, and even swimming can help improve your joints’ durability without putting much stress on them.
- Lose some weight
Did you know that your body weight plays a crucial role in the durability of your knees? Each step you take delivers four times your body weight to your knee joint. The heavier you weigh, the harder the impact will be. If your job has you moving from one place to the next, there’s a high chance that you’re overworking your joints.
Changing your diet to lose weight creates a chain reaction of events which lessens the load on your joints. People with arthritic knees are known to lose 20 per cent of their knee pain with every 10 pounds of lost weight. If you want to avoid experiencing painful pangs of muscle joint pain from arthritis in your later years, you should start watching what you eat and make sure to live a healthier lifestyle early on.
Conclusion
Many people think that they don’t have the time to get fit because of their busy work-life routines. However, this can lead to the inactivity of the muscles, which makes them unprepared to handle various physical conditions. Taking the time to boost your body’s defences by doing simple lifestyle changes can go a long way in improving your health.
If you’re experiencing knee pain or similar types of injuries, Anytime Physio offers physiotherapy in Brisbane to help your body heal from your illness. Our expert physiotherapists offer cost-effective physiotherapy, remedial massage and pilates services with rehabilitation plans and treatment techniques that are patient-tailored. Get in touch with us today to get an expert diagnosis of your condition and have it treated!
