Stuck at home and need some easy exercises you can do on your own to take care of your knees? These 3 exercises were developed for arthritis sufferers in mind, but honestly, anyone who needs to squeeze in a little moving in their day can benefit from these short exercises. Because let’s be honest, when you’re stuck in one place all day, everything is going to start feeling a little creaky.
The old saying, “You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone” is true for many aspects of our lives. Why are we mentioning this in an article about knee arthritis? Well, it seems that people are taking their knees, the largest joint in the body, for granted, and only begin to appreciate their magnitude of importance when things go sour.
Think about it – if there’s a single joint (or two single joints) that we most heavily use and that carriesmost of our body weight, it’s our knees. Do you walk, run, climb, or jump? If you answered YES to one of these, you are in!
Knee Arthritis Exercises
While it may be tempting to avoid exercise when knee pain occurs, this is not always the appropriate solution. Certain types of exercise can help alleviate existing knee pain and prevent future pain or injury by providing the knee with extra support.
According to the Arthritis Foundation, exercise may be the most effective way to treat osteoarthritis without surgery. Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis and is the result of ware and tare–it could be related to aging, but can also hit young people, like those who engage in high-impact sports.
Regular physical activity can keep the muscles around affected joints strong, decrease bone loss and may help control joint swelling and pain. It also replenishes lubrication of the cartilage of the joint, reduces stiffness and pain and is critical to maintaining a healthy range of motion.