Joint health

The are many undervalued areas of our health, especially in the realm of the body builder. We pound and pound the weights week in week out and sometimes forget the other areas of our health that have to take a back seat and except this constant onslaught of pressure. Weight training puts stress on the muscles, but what surrounds our muscles? Joints right, and how often do with think about taking care of their health. It’s often an afterthought, or we often come to their rescue when we actually start to experience some pain or restricted movement.

Joints are surrounded and innervated by lots of muscles, all coming in from various angles to support and offer strength and mobility to that particular area. So it makes sense to take care of the muscles, and then a lot of the time the joints are able to take care of themselves. Of course diet plays a huge role in joint health, but keep the muscles functional and you are well on your way to maintaining healthy joint health deep into old age.  

Just think of the case of hamstring inflexibility, a very common area of the body that is often tight and sore, especially after a heavy legs session. If the hamstrings are not effectively stretched, mobilised and released the onslaught of tightening through training and poor posture when sitting will shorten the hamstrings over time. This is going to put stress on the pelvis and back as one side of the legs is tight and not the other. This one sided tightness adds stress to one side of the joint, which over time causes stress and extra force to be placed on the joint, thus increasing the chances of joint pain and degeneration. So soft tissue work and stretching should always be a habit in your regime to keep long term muscle and joint health in check.

Your diet is then going to aid in the amount of inflammation that is in the joints. Eat too much meat and starchy carbohydrate all the time and you will increase the acidic load of your diet on the whole body, learn to cycle your carbohydrates so adequate alkaline vegetables are included to ensure your blood Ph stays normal. Also find out if you are eating a food that you are intolerant to, this will cause your gut to be inflamed and thus cause the same effect on your joints.

Now we’ve covered diet and muscle health in preserving your valued joints, what about a few choice supplements. There are many compounds that aid in joint and ligament/tendon healing, many supplements being based around glucosamine, bromaline, fish oils, pineapple and a few other choice elements. NOW Joint Support is the best of the bunch, harnessing some intelligent vitamins and minerals along for the ride to aid in all areas of joint health and reduction in inflammatory compounds:

Never thought there was so much to joint health did you. Look after them, you only get one set.