Exercise for Osteoarthritis: Your Key to Pain Relief and Better Joint Health
Exercise is good for your osteoarthritis
Professor Kim Bennell, physiotherapist
Most important treatments for osteoarthritis really have two main one’s exercise and weight loss if overweight. With exercise structured exercise is really important to help strengthen up the muscles to improve your fitness and to improve range of motion but it's not just structured exercise also just being more physically active in everyday life is really important parking the car a little bit further away walking and so forth.
Lucinda Moody, exercise physiologist
Physical activity and exercise are essential for anyone without osteoarthritis to increase the joint stability to increase the muscles around the joint for balance improved balance improved motivation improved sleep patterns. It's also a great way to decrease pain, pushing through that pain barrier of people who suffer with pain on a regular basis and also for you know mental well-being and health.
Professor Kim Bennell, physiotherapist
The research shows that exercise is beneficial for pain, function as well as improving quality of life and the benefits that you get from exercise are actually comparable to those benefits that you can get from common drug therapies for osteoarthritis, but the advantage of exercise is that it has much fewer side-effects. Also, it helps improve other comorbidities such as diabetes obesity and so forth.
Lucinda Moody, exercise physiologist
In addition to your osteoarthritis, you are overweight one kilo of bodyweight will impact on your joint’s times four. So, for example if you're 10 kilos overweight that's an extra 40 kilos of load on your jaw on your knee joint or your hip joint. Everyday activities such as walking and running that is going to make a massive impact any sort of load bearing exercise. It's so important to try and reduce your body weight even by small amounts which will have a massive impact on that load will help your range of movement decrease your pain and help achieve your health and wellness goals through an exercise professional and your tailored exercise program.
Professor Kim Bennell, physiotherapist
Research shows that exercise is beneficial for everyone with osteoarthritis regardless of how old they are, how severe their disease is, what it looks like on their x-ray how severe their pain levels are, or their function.
