Many people don’t realise the extent to which your joints are supported by your muscles, which means that keeping your muscles strong helps protect your joints from injury, reducing pain and stiffness. Once you’re over 50 in particular, it’s important to add individual muscle group strengthening exercises to your regular aerobic exercise regime.’
The most beneficial exercise for you, on the whole, is the one you’re most likely to stick with. If you have significant problems with your joints, you may want to avoid very high impact exercise such as rugby, squash, skiing or gymnastics. HIIT (high intensity interval training) and step classes are also high impact. Running (in the right shoes with lots of shock absorbency) and tennis are moderate impact while cycling, yoga, swimming and water aerobics are low impact.
You should combine aerobic exercise (the kind that makes you mildly out of breath) with specific joint exercises to increase mobility and muscle strength for individual joints. Yoga, tai-chi, resistance band workouts, heavy gardening and pilates are all good for strengthening muscles: this reduces the risk of falls as you get older but also protects your joints.’
1. YOGA
2. TA-CHI
3. RESISTANCE BAND WORKOUTS
4. HEAVY GARDENING
5. PILATES
6. SUPPLEMENTS
