The 3 Habits You're Unaware of that Damage Your Joints
Joints are essential to execute any movement. Our bones are hard, and we can’t move them, so our muscles do the work of pulling them. The joints allow this movement while preventing each action from being abnormal or causing damage.
Therefore, maintaining healthy joints is vital for a life with as few ailments and discomforts as possible. To do this, you’ll have to be very careful with the following three habits.
Mistakes that damage your joints when working out
This section includes several mistakes that we make when doing physical exercises. Whether you work out in a gym, on your own or with a group of friends, you should always take the following tips into account:
- The warm-up. We all know this, but we often take it as an option or don’t spend enough time on it. We need to get a good warm-up before exercise so that our joints don’t suffer during the effort that we’ll be putting them through.
- An appropriate load. Exceeding our limits in the duration of the workout or the weight we lift will be fatal for our joints. You don’t have to experience an immediate and obvious injury for there to be damage; wear and tear with an inadequate weight that extends for too much time will also lead to pathologies.
- A correct posture. Not all exercises are healthy. You must make sure that you have the correct form in any discipline you practice. The most common example is the squat; if you let your knees go beyond the vertical line drawn from the tips of your toes, you’re adding an element of damage to the knee joint.
- Rest. It’s very important to respect rest times since that’s when our joints recover. It’s a necessary period to endure the effort properly.
- Say no to a sedentary lifestyle. A lack of physical activity will also impact your joints. If you don’t work your muscles, the efforts and loads will go directly to that area. This will, in turn, affect the soft tissues of the joints.
Bad nutrition
Improper nutrition will cause joints to wear out faster. Just as they need rest, the body’s structures also need certain nutrients to continue working at their best.
Therefore, a balanced diet will be your best ally. An excess of body fat can be very harmful; fruits such as cherries or pineapple are the best option to avoid this type of problem.
We must also include elements such as calcium to protect the bones. And, remember that you have to include the sunshine in order for your body to produce vitamin D and thus be able to absorb the calcium you take. You must also be careful about your alcohol intake, which will not only make you prone to numerous diseases but can also cause some weight gain.
This is precisely the last reason why we should avoid a bad diet. If you’re overweight, the joints will suffer more than those of a person on a healthy weight range. Therefore, every pound that you manage to lose will be a relief for your joints.
Aging deteriorates and causes damage to the joints
This is obviously not a habit that you can drop, no matter how hard you try. However, it’s more of a reminder: the older we are, the more precautions we must take.
The passage of time causes a lot of wear and tear on our joints, no matter what we do. Therefore, it’s important to be even more careful about all the points we listed above as we keep on getting older.
Finally, we may also suffer from progressive calcium loss in the bones as we age. Because of this, we should try to increase our calcium intake, with its corresponding hours of sunshine.
Let’s go over the three aspects we discussed:
- Warm-up properly to prepare your muscles.
- Gradually eliminate exercises from your routine that could be harmful and cause loss of bone density.
- Take care of your diet.
Your joints will thank you!
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