How Should You Train If You Have Arthritis

The standard treatment protocol for arthritis is to strengthen the muscles around your joints. Say you have an arthritic knee: many trainers will have you doing leg extensions and leg presses to strengthen the muscles around your knee, building up your quads and hamstrings and strengthening the muscles that run to your hips that control knee stability. All that is good - nobody's knees are too stable, after all - but it's not addressing the problem. Arthritis isn't a muscular condition. It's a breakdown of the joint surface. If your training program isn't aiming to halt and ideally reverse this, it's not addressing the real issue.

First, avoid anything that puts impact on the arthritic joint. Secondly, slowly work up to a natural range of movement, or to the best range of movement you can get with only discomfort or slight pain. Don't work through agony or do anything that feels like it's making things worse. OK, now here's the secret: There is a way to regenerate damaged joint surfaces. It's non-surgical, non-invasive, drug-free, non-denominational and for just $199.00 plus tax I'll tell you what it is. 

Just kidding. The really beautiful part? It's free. 

I'm not saying all arthritis is curable and that if yours still hurts it's your fault - but progress is possible. If your arthritis is in your knees, walking is a good choice. We're talking an hour or so a day here, carefully avoiding 'stumping' on the arthritic leg (impact; bad) and moving with the discomfort, but not the pain. 

In the arms, there are simple raise-lower exercises derived from T'ai Chi, yoga, ballet or dozens of other movement systems that allow you to move your arms around in a fluid and impact-free way, increasing joint surface integrity and lubrication as you do it. The key issue is to do high repetitions with no load or impact. Just find something repetetive you can do and do it for high repetitions. It's not what anyone wants to hear, and it can feel at first like it's not doing anything. Persevere. It's worth it.

See Also: Rehabilitating An Injury: The Rules

Some people swear by yoga, and it's worth taking a look at  the achievements of chronically injured veteran Arthur, who used the yoga system taught by Diamond Dallas Page to radically transfigure his health. I'm not advocating DDP yoga, or any yoga: I'm advocating structured movement that starts with, and builds on, what you can already do.

If you think I've missed out something important, or you think I've hit the nail on the head, get in touch with me in the comments section below and we'll talk about it!