Joints are part of our musculoskeletal system along with our bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments and cartilage. The musculoskeletal system is the system in our body that oversees our movement, and just like the muscles and hearts, it also needs exercise to keep the joints functioning.
Unlike muscles, joints have no direct blood supply, so if there’s no motion in the joint it will degenerate and lose some or all of it’s ability to function. Life without even the simplest of joint movements would be rather inconvenient, so to keep all your joints functioning properly, try these five simple exercises:
1. Neck Circles
The sheer amount of time most people sitting at their desks at school, work or in front of the TV at home, can create postural deficiencies like “forward-head” posture. Forward-head posture causes stiffness in the joints in the cervical spine (around our neck). Neck circles are a simple but very effective exercise for releasing that tension around your neck.
Procedure:
• Begin with standing tall with your feet shoulder-distance apart
• Slightly bend your knees and draw your navel in.
• Rest your arms on your sides, shoulders rolled back and neck in line with the spine.
• Drop your chin to your chest and slowly roll your right ear over your right shoulder-distance
• Gently drop your head back and slowly roll your left ear over the left shoulder.
• Gently come back to the center.
Do this again, but starting from your left ear this time. Repeat for each 10 times on both sides.
2. Wrist Rolls
The Wrist joint is one joint that most people, even the most ardent of trainers, don’t really take care of. Weak wrists can make certain body-weight exercises such as push-ups and certain yoga poses very uncomfortable and even painful. Wrist rolls can really help a great deal in making the wrist joint much more mobile.
Procedure:
• Put your arms in front of you
• Fully open your hands
• Bring your fingers back toward your forearm
• Then circle at the wrist for five to 10 repetitions
3. Pelvic Circles
For people who train a lot, this move is particularly important, as regular exercise tends to put a lot of direct pressure on the pelvic joint. So every day, before and after training, make it a point of duty to lubricate your pelvic joints and lumbar spine by doing pelvic circles.
Procedure:
• Start with your feet hip-distance apart and your hands on your hips.
• Keep your feet planted as you move your hips in a circular motion.
• Repeat five to 10 times in each direction.
4. Knee Circles
Knee pain is always associated with immobility of the hip joint.
Knee-circling exercise does not only free the muscles, ligaments and tendons around the knee joint, but it also frees the hips as well.
Procedure:
• Begin by standing and bending one knee up so that your thigh is parallel to the floor.
• Extend your leg straight out in front of you in a way that it’s parallel to the floor now.
• Circle at the knee as you bring the heel to the outside of your hip, through to starting position, then toward your opposite inner thigh and back around to the extended position.
Perform five to 10 repetitions in each direction before switching legs. If you do it right, you’ll notice that knee-circling isn’t possible without some rotation of the hips too.
5. Ankle Circles
Especially for runners, ankle pains can be really disturbing. Mobilizing your ankle simply solves that problem for you. This exercise facilitates movement in ankle and also aids your gait if you were suffering from knee pain or lower back pain.
Weak ankles for runners in particular could lead to the development of a number of other complication such as plantar fascitis, given the fact that the ankles have to absorb so much impact from the force of the body hitting the ground repeatedly.
Procedure:
• Stand or sit and lift one heel off the ground.
• Flex your foot, bringing your toes toward your shin.
• Circle the ankle around and point your toes for full extension at the bottom of the movement before circling around to the starting position.
Repeat this procedure for about 10 repetitions in each direction and on both legs.
Conclusion
Reduce the risk of developing joint pains by following these simply procedures. From your neck to you wrist, elbows, and ankles, your joints need to be exercised on a daily basis. These exercise can be done within the comfort of your bedroom so make sure you do them consistenty.
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