Osteoarthritis | SeniorsFitness
Did you know, that Physical Activity is the best non-drug treatment for improving pain and function?
Many people worry that exercising with osteoarthritis is detrimental to their joints and general movement. However, this is actually far from the truth as exercise is the best non-drug treatment for improving your pain and function if you have osteoarthritis. There are two main exercise principles you should focus on in order to help manage your osteoarthritis, these are flexibility and strength.
Osteoarthritis has the ability to reduce your range of motion due to pain and the function of your joints. Therefore flexibility should be incorporated into your training schedule daily. Range of motion is the degree of movement your joints can perform in which they were designed to move. If your joints are not moving through this full range of motion, you will find tasks harder to perform and therefore struggle to do day to day activities that you once could do.
Ideally you need to be doing range of motion exercises daily which consist of lightly stretching your muscles around your joints through their full range of movement.
Muscle weakness is very common with people with Osteoarthritis, consistently associated with an increased risk of functional limitations and disability. That is why strength is another huge contributor to reducing pain and improving movement throughout your affected joints. Generally you strengthen those muscles around the affected joints, providing a strength training program that progressively overloads the muscles to maintain intensity throughout the exercise program. We utilise our keiser strength equipment which maintains the resistance through the full range of movement unlike any other resistance machines in your local gyms. This alone, can also help with increasing mobility and your independence!
There can be other contributing risk factors for the development and progression of osteoarthritis including but not limited to excess body weight. You should always book in to seek professional advise by your GP or exercise professional to be advised what exercise is right for you!
Book in today for your initial assessment to see how we can help you!