Exercising with Joint Pain

Are joint jitters keeping you from getting the exercise you need?

If you have pain caused by arthritis, bursitis, tendonitis, sports injury, an autoimmune disorder such as lupus, or other source, exercising might seem out of the question. After all, your stiff and uncomfortable joints already ache when you get out of bed, walk down stairs, or reach for a box on the supermarket shelves. Why would you want them to endure the stress of exercise?

The conventional wisdom used to be that exercising would increase joint problems. Years of research findings now show that the less you move your joints, the weaker and more painful they become. You then use them less, eventually causing a decline in their ability to function. One recent study of people with arthritis, published in the journal Arthritis & Rheumatism, found that women and minorities experience this decline most frequently.

Being physically inactive not only can worsen your joint problems, it also increases your risk for developing type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis.

Physical activity lessens chronic joint symptoms and improves overall quality-of-life. It provides those benefits without increasing healthy adults' risk of developing osteoarthritis in the hips or knees or musculoskeletal pain.

"Exercise is an important part of any arthritis treatment program," says Bernard R. Rubin, D.O., M.P.H., chief of the division of rheumatology at the University of North Texas Health Science Center. "If someone says they have pain 'all the time,' I encourage exercise since they may actually have a decrease in symptoms with regular exercise."

Think three

To help your joints, focus on three types of exercise—flexibility, strengthening and aerobic. "Just start out slowly," says Heather Elco, MA, ATC, an exercise physiologist at The Cleveland Clinic. When you have joint pain, it's especially important to talk with your health care professional before starting to exercise in order to choose the right activity for your specific condition, Elco says.

After a brief adjustment period, your joint-friendly exercise routine will probably include all three of these exercise categories: