Tips to Take Care of Your Joints

It's important to take care of your joints because they're very important in your everyday life. You need to protect them to stay active and healthy.

Joints are where two bones connect. Since bones are rigid, joints allow your bones to move. Therefore, it’s important to take care of your joints, whether you want to stay fit or complete daily tasks without pain.

Structures involved

We can move freely without each bone going its own way thanks to structures that surround and separate spaces. The main joints are:

• Joint capsule: this membrane covers the entire joint. Also, it prevents it from moving too much.
• Synovial fluid: inside the joint capsules, and helps nourish the cartilage. In addition, it prevents the bones from rubbing against the joint.
• Ligaments: these are outside of the joint. These fibrous bands limit movement, so your body doesn’t move how it’s not supposed to.
• Muscles and tendons: these structures move your bones and also your joints. Strong muscles will help your joints to function properly.

We should mention that there are hundreds of joints in the human body. In fact, this includes junctions of skull bones or the symphysis pubis, which allows little to no movement.

In this article, we’ll mainly talk about synovial joints, which have the parts that we mentioned. For example, some of these joints are in your elbows, wrists, hips, knees, and ankles.

How to take care of your joints

The first point to keep in mind to take care of your joints is to do just enough exercise. Too much or too intense exercise can actually deteriorate your joints. Also, it could put too much weight on them.

On the other hand, not getting enough exercise means your muscles won’t be able to absorb the forces that work on them. Then, the ligaments work too hard, leaving the joint capsule unprotected. Therefore, just enough exercise will keep your muscles strong and tight to help these structures.

In addition, by exercising, you’ll also help to strengthen your bones. In fact, old cells absorb, and new cells replace them. It’s a process that depends on stimulation.

Warming up is also important for taking care of your joints. Having your muscles ready will also help them absorb the load, instead of your ligaments or other soft tissues.

Another important point is to respect recovery times. Physical exercise has processes that need time. So, if you do it too often, your joints won’t recover from the first workout, and then they need to work for the next one.

Eating right

Also, make sure you follow a good diet. A balanced diet that doesn’t have too much fat will give your joints the nutrients they need. Fruits such as cherries and pineapples are two great allies to fight joint pain.

Meanwhile, vitamins A and C will also help to rebuild damaged tissues. Additionally, to keep your bones strong, you need vitamin D and calcium. However, the process for your bones to absorb calcium is actually very complicated.

In order for bones to use calcium and stay strong, you also need to do moderate exercise and get enough sun. Sunlight is important because there are very few foods that contain vitamin D, but your body produces it naturally in the sun.

In short, you already know: to take care of your joints, do moderate exercise, warm-up, rest when your body needs it, eat well and take in the sun. They’re all very beneficial habits!