The Pittman CONNECTION The Newsletter About Your Health And Caring For Your Body
pittmanpt.com
3 EASY STEPS to Healthier Hips & Knees For many people, knee pain can be away of life, limiting their ability to climb stairs, squat down to get something off the floor, enjoy long walks, shop and a host of other daily activities. The knee joint is one of the most complicated joints in the body and has to bear up to 6 times your body weight with running or jumping. This incredible joint has to move over a million times each year and over 80 million times over a lifetime. This is also the reason why things can go wrong, causing injury and pain. Just like taking care of your heart is necessary for cardiovascular health, your joints need attention to maintain a healthy state. Here are some easy tips that can help you take care of your knees, increase flexibility, and alleviate joint problems: 1. Stretch your hamstrings, quadriceps and adductor muscles each day. By keeping these muscles flexible, you can balance the forces on your knee joints. This allows your knee joint to bend and rotate while your patella (kneecap) tracks properly. 2. Keep themuscles around your hips and knees strong. Especially the gluteal and quadricep muscles. Studies show that adults, especially over 55, who have stronger gluteals and quadriceps
tend to have less back and joint pain and more ability to do daily activities. 3. Exercise regularly. While this is good for the whole body, the knees especially need exercise to keep their cartilage healthy. The cartilage does not have much blood supply and requires its nutrition from joint fluid. Most of the joint fluid absorbs into the cartilage only through movement and compression of the knee. Therefore, it is important to do weight bearing exercise such as walking, running and other sports. However, if you have arthritis, it is advised to do lower impact activities such as biking, elliptical machines, aquatic exercises, etc. Having a regular physical therapy checkup ensures that your joints are working at their peak performance. In addition, any problems will be discovered early, preventing the onset of arthritis and joint injury. If you do have arthritis or have had surgery, then a regular physical therapy checkup is especially important. If your attention is on that sore knee, then it is time you called us for a knee joint analysis. Contact our expert physical therapists today at 901-850-5246 and see how wonderful life can be with freely moving knees.
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