Arthritis becomes more common as we get older, so it affects many people in a club like ours. The right exercise is one of the best ways to manage it. Here are the simple facts, and how the training you already do here helps your joints.
Arthritis: the simple facts
- Arthritis isn’t one disease. It’s the name for more than 100 conditions that affect your joints.
- About 3.7 million Australians have it. That’s roughly 1 in 7 of us, and almost 1 in 2 people aged 75 and over.
- Osteoarthritis is the most common type.
- The usual symptoms are joint pain, stiffness, swelling and reduced movement.
- Your risk goes up with age, extra body weight and old joint injuries.
- Staying active is one of the most effective ways to treat it.
How your training helps
Your HUR program
Your HUR program builds strength. Stronger muscles support your joints and take strain off them, and research shows people with arthritis can do strength training safely.
- The machines use air pressure instead of weight stacks. The resistance stays smooth through the whole movement, which is easier on joints.
- The load goes up in steps as small as 100 grams. Building up gradually is what’s recommended for arthritis.
- Your card loads your own settings each time, so you always work at your level.
Your gym floor program
You do this alongside your HUR program, using the free weights, cable machines and plate-loaded machines. It adds two things:
- More strength work with different exercises. Varying your exercises is part of getting the most from strength training.
- Balance training. Arthritis can make you unsteady, and better balance lowers your risk of a fall.
Stronger bones and joints
Bones are living tissue. When you load them, they respond by getting stronger, and both of your programs do this.
- Resistance training builds bone as well as muscle. Your HUR program and your gym floor program both count.
- Weight-bearing exercise means working on your feet, holding your own body weight. The standing exercises in your gym floor program, like squats and step-ups, are weight-bearing.
Healthy Bones Australia recommends a mix of weight-bearing exercise, resistance training and balance work, done regularly and made gradually harder over time. Lifting heavier works too: in the Australian LIFTMOR trial, women over 58 with low bone density improved the density of their spine and hip with closely supervised heavy lifting, and no adverse events were reported.
Your joints respond to loading too. Joint cartilage gets its nourishment from movement, and a study of people at high risk of knee osteoarthritis found four months of regular exercise improved the quality of their knee cartilage. The RACGP guideline also notes that long-term exercise is safe and isn’t linked to arthritis getting worse faster.
In short, using your joints properly doesn’t wear them out. It helps keep them, and the bones around them, strong. Exercise won’t reverse arthritis that’s already there, but it can help slow it down and make your joints work better.
Turning up regularly
Staying active is one of the most effective ways to treat arthritis. Regular exercise helps reduce pain, keeps your muscles strong and improves sleep and mood. It also helps with your weight, and less body weight means less pressure on your joints.
On a sore day
Some discomfort during exercise is normal with arthritis and is unlikely to mean harm.
Tell us how your joints are going. The club is always staffed, so if a joint is sore or an exercise doesn’t feel right, tell a trainer and we’ll adjust your program.
