Taking Care of Your Joints

Yes, the anklebone’s connected to the shinbone, and the shinbone’s connected to the thighbone, but what about those poor under-sung joints in between?

According to the Arthritis Foundation, 66 million people suffer from arthritis or chronic joint symptoms (nearly one in three adults). It’s one of the most prevalent chronic health problems and the nation’s leading cause of disability among Americans over age 15. Keeping your joints in fine working order is especially important for athletes and weekend warriors. You don’t want to have to say, “I can’t run anymore because my knees are shot,” when the next game of pickup basketball comes up.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that more than 10,000 people receive treatment in emergency rooms each day for injuries sustained in sports, recreation, and exercise activities, and that at least one of every five emergency room visits for an injury results from participation in sports or recreation. But you’re not going to let the fear of injury keep you inside; you’re going to keep up the active lifestyle that makes you happy.

 Preparation is key to remain injury-free

Tennis elbow (lateral and medial epicondylitis) can be caused by turning a screwdriver, and walking can cause runner’s knee (patellofemoral pain). The smart bet, then, is to know what causes injury, be conscious of your movements, and prepare your body for use before using it.

According to the “Common Sports Injuries” chapter of the The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy (John Wiley & Sons, 1999) written by Gabe Mirkin, MD, these are the two most common sources of musculoskeletal and connective tissue injury:

6 Overuse.
Working muscle fibers through exercise means a required period of healing for those fibers. If you continually put too much stress on those fibers, sooner or later they will give in—and give out.

6 biomechanical factors
There’s a kind of cascading effect to biomechanical injuries. Muscles, tendons, and ligaments may be injured when they are too weak. Joints are more likely to be damaged if supporting muscles and ligaments are weak.

“All persons have tissues susceptible to injury because of inherent weakness or biomechanical factors,” Mirkin says. Mirkin notes that patients with exaggerated lumbar lordosis, or swayback, are at risk of back pain when they swing a baseball bat, and running long distances can cause knee pain in people with foot problems. “Without correction, the risk of chronic injury is high because specific motions are performed repeatedly in all sports,” he says.

Knowledge is Power

According to Peter Seamans, certified somatic neuromuscular therapist and corrective high-performance exercise kinesiologist, “The key to avoiding joint distress is flexibility, strength, and stability.”

If you are strong but inflexible, you risk tearing muscles. If you are flexible but weak, the joints won’t have the strength necessary to support that flexibility. Either way, if you can’t stabilize your joints under load, that instability will start to wear the joints.”

In order to protect the joints, one must work on all three fronts. With that in mind, Seamans says the key to designing a proper workout and stretching routine is approaching it on an individual, not a generic, basis. “Every person has specific adaptations that they’ve had since childhood,” he says. “It is necessary to search out those imbalances and restore natural balance, which, in turn, provides for properly functioning joints. If your hip flexors and calf muscles are tight, your knee will suffer for that imbalance. Stretch and strengthen those muscles and the knee will begin to realign.”

Lisa Dorfman, MS, RD, sports nutritionist and certified USA Track and Field and USA Triathlon coach, agrees that improper form can injure joints. “It’s important to remember to have movements in the same direction,” Dorfman advises. “Lateral tension increases the likelihood of injury.” Going back to the knee example, if the hip flexors tug the knee outward, the joint won’t track properly in its correct front/back motion.

Dorfman also recommends strengthening the muscles around the joint to decrease the tension and reliance on the joint for movement. Regular resistance training and aerobic activity will improve your strength and endurance, she says, and will help distribute “the force of muscle contraction more evenly over the joint surfaces.”

Of course, all the stretching, strengthening, and stabilizing in the world won’t help if you continue to reinforce bad habits. There’s much more to taking care of your joints than just hitting the gym. “Beyond that, and more simple than that,” Seamans says, “is your awareness of your own body.”

Supplements for Supple Joints

Tiny tears and strains are inevitable in the hard-working body. In fact, that’s how one builds flexibility and strength. Herbs that promote wound healing are of great value to keep joints working properly. Curcumin, which is the active component in turmeric (Curcuma longa), is a popular wound-repair ingredient. A 2004 study in the journal Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition sought to explain the biochemical mechanism of curcumin to explain its “anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anticarcinogenic, antiviral, and anti-infectious activities. In addition, the wound healing and detoxifying properties of curcumin have also received considerable attention,” the researchers stated.

Essential oils can help aching joints and speed healing. The Journal of Inflammation published a study in February that found that external application of geranium essential oil “can suppress the inflammatory symptoms.” They also found that lavender, eucalyptus, and tea tree oils suppressed inflammation, but not to the extent that geranium did.

David Bunting, master herbalist, says, “Herbs such as gotu kola (Centella asiatica), echinacea (Echinacea purpurea), horsetail (Equisetum arvense), and thuja (Thuja occidentalis) can work together to help strengthen joints and promote vascularization of connective tissue.” He also notes, “A diet rich in green vegetables, supplemented with a multi-mineral if needed, is also essential for encouraging development of dense connective tissue.”

Body bibliography

Peter Seamans, certified somatic neuromuscular therapist and corrective high-performance exercise kinesiologist, recommends the following books for more information about how to prevent joint injury:

Muscles: Testing and Function (Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2005) by Florence Peterson Kendall and Elizabeth Kendall McCreary. This clinical book will show you how to test length and tension of most of the muscles in the body.

Somatics (Da Capo Press, 2004) by Thomas Hanna, PhD, founder of the field of Somatics and director of the Novato Institute for Somatic Research and Training. This book details a movement method called “sensory-motor awareness.”

Self-Awakening Yoga: The Expansion of Consciousness through the Body’s Own Wisdom (Healing Arts Press, 2004) by Don Stapleton, PhD, a teacher and director of the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health for 19 years and cofounder and codirector of the Nosara Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. A spinal injury caused Stapleton to explore yoga postures that “draw on the roots of yoga as a creative learning process and an expansion of consciousness.”

http://www.naturalsolutionsmag.com/article-display/11831/subTopicID/181/Keep-Those-Joints-Jumping

http://www.depsyl.com/

http://back2basicnutrition.com/

http://bionutritionalresearch.olhblogspace.com/