Beneficial Exercises for Your Road to Reduce Joint Pain

Whenever you’re feeling stiffness or pain in your joints from your Rheumatoid Arthritis, your first instinct might be to just rest and stay away from physical activities. However, staying active and exercising not only helps relieve pain, but it also keeps you energized and in a better mood overall! With that said, one of the most important things to remember when you’re exercising is proper form and making sure you don’t injure yourself. And the worst thing you can do to your body is perform an exercise that you’re unsure of – meaning you should never feel embarrassed or nervous to ask a professional for help and guidance. From weight training to swimming to yoga, to help you out with your road to recovery, we’ve collected a list and gone into details about some of the most beneficial work-outs to practice and reduce joint pain.

Benefits of Isometric Lunges

A beneficial way to work out your knee, while still keeping your joint pain to a minimal, is through isometric exercises – more specifically, an Isometric Lunge. What exactly is an isometric exercise, you ask? It’s basically a form of training without movement, by contracting and activating your muscles in a way where your joints are barely affected – also aiding with maintaining strength and stability. More specifically, the isometric lunge is a great exercise to utilize for your knees, since it focuses more on holding a position, rather than movement – which is much easier on your joints and range of motion.

How to Do an Isometric Lunge

We’ve talked about why you should practice isometric lunges, but how exactly do you do it?

1. Take a big step forward with one foot and the other slightly behind you, while keeping your hands on your hips.
2. Keep your core tight and braced in, push down into your feet, bend your knees at about 30 degrees. If this is too easy, slow bend your knee as far as you feel comfortable, making sure your back knee stays off the ground.
3. Take a look down to make sure that your front knee is directly over your toes.
4. With your gaze forward, hold your stance for a maximum of 30 seconds, making sure you regularly breath in and out of your nose.
5. Carefully push out of the pose with your front foot back to a standing position, and repeat on the opposite side.

Keep in mind, that practicing different depths of the lunge will help your knee with strengthening different angles.

Benefits of Dumbbell Farmer’s Carry

In order to improve support and protection of the joints that are affected by it, strength training is crucial for those of you who have Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). Because of that, adding in the Dumbbell Farmer’s Carry to your work-out routine is a must! Even though this exercise is naturally a heavy-load one, the best part is that it actually targets both your upper and lower body muscles. The gist of the exercise is exactly what it sounds like – carrying a weight in each hand and walking. Next, we’ll tell you exactly how to keep your form proper for your reps.

How to Properly Perform the Dumbbell Farmer’s Carry

With any type of exercise, especially with weights, your form is going to be crucial for proper and safe performance. So how exactly do you do the Dumbbell Farmer’s Carry? First off, choose weights or kettlebells that are light enough for you to carry comfortably with a straight posture, but challenging enough for the training to be effective. The amount of time you choose to walk is dependent on your level of fitness, and can be increased over time to maximize improvement.

1. Carefully grab and lift a kettlebell in each hand.
2. Prepare for the proper stance by spreading your feet shoulder-width apart and your arms by your side. Keep your posture long, straight, and confident.
3. While maintaining your upright posture, activate your abdominal and core muscles, and pull your shoulder blades towards each other and downward.
4. With your spine tall and your gaze up and focused ahead, take your first step and continue walking at a comfortable. The faster you walk, the more cardio benefits and results you will see.
5. Return back to your starting point and carefully set down the weights.

Benefits of 90/90 Hip Switch

This next exercise is a bit tricky, but incredibly helpful for those hips that don’t lie! Using the 90/90 Hip Switch is perfect to help improve mobility, stability, and flexibility with anything from more intense exercises like side lunges to just simply going up the steps in your house. Another great thing to keep in mind is that one of the best times to practice this exercise, is before or after your work-out, since it is known as a basic hip opening sequence and also provides a really great warm-up and stretch for your hips.

90/90 Hip Switch: How to Do It

As we mentioned before, this exercise is a bit tricky, but we’ll guide you through it step by step. Keep in mind to always ask a professional for help or additional guidance when needed.

1. Start sitting down and facing to the right side. Your lead leg should be bent to 90 degrees, directly in front of you, with your heel and knee vertically parallel to each other. Your back leg should be placed to your side at a 90-degree bend, in line with your hips, with your heel and knee horizontally parallel to each other.

2. With your right arm to your side for support, extend your back forward, aiming for your belly button to reach over your knee to feel that stretch. Gently place your left hand on your ankle for additional balance and support.

3. Turn yourself to face forward, place your hands behind your back, and walk yourself up as far as your can. Once you’ve reached a comfortable point, hold the pose to stretch. For a more challenging stretch, place your hands on your chest and gently rotate your upper body to square off with your back leg.

4. Keeping your weight on your back leg, point your toes, post up on your big toe of your back leg. Swing and rotate your back leg so that you and your knee are facing towards the right side.

5. Rotate yourself and your back knee facing forward, so that both knees are now off the ground and parallel with your chest.

6. Switch to the opposite direction and repeat the process for your other hip.

Benefits of Wall Slides

We’ve touched on exercises that focus on the lower body, but what about the upper body? Strengthening your muscles is very important for anyone with joint pain, but this next exercise focuses on flexibility and mobility, as well, which is just as important. Wall Slides are a great way to practice shoulder mobility and strengthening your rotator cuff muscles. And the best part is that you don’t even need any additional equipment – just enough space to stretch out your arms! Doing this stretch before or after work-outs will help ease your body during training, too.

How to Properly Perform a Wall Slide

For this exercise, keeping your lower back against the wall is key, but it’s okay if you can’t get it all the way there at first – always listen to your body and what feels okay. The more that you practice, the easier it will be to align your back properly.

1. Step about a foot away from the wall and lean your back towards it. With your entire back against the wall, both upper and lower, place your feet shoulder-width apart, and stand up with a straight posture. Place your arms parallel to your shoulders, with your arms bent at 90 degrees.
2. Slowly raise your arms up, with your shoulder blades pressed up against and into the wall, keeping your lower back against the wall. Stop at the point where your elbow, wrists, or lower back starts separating and losing contact from the wall.
3. Hold your position for 5 seconds.
4. Slowly move your arms back to the original position.

Benefits of Weighted Sled Push

While the Weighted Sled Push might seem like something for CrossFit crazed and intense athletes, this exercise is quite low-risk when it comes to injury and joint usage. You have the option to be as slow or fast as you want, and the actual posture you’re positioned in is arched and concentric, focused on building tolerance on your joints rather than wearing and tearing them. As far as when to do this work-out, it has been known to be an excellent one to add to your routine either at the beginning or at the end.

How to Properly Perform the Weighted Sled Push

The movement itself for this exercise is quite simple, it’s the position and stance that’s more important to focus on.

1. Grip the sled at a height that’s comfortable for you.
2. Set your feet at a running stance, and bend down to keep your spine and upper body is as neutrally aligned as possible.
3. Inhale a deep breath into your core, filling your back with air. Remember to brace your core and push the sled with the power of your legs.
4. Start to push and move the sled at a comfortable pace – going faster doesn’t always equal better. You can always condition yourself to move up in speed and weights on the sled.
5. When you start moving, remember to keep all of your toes on the floor with each stride that you take. Your strides should not surpass your core, and your feet should be in line with your knees throughout the rep.
6. When using the lower end of the sled, make sure that get low and keep your hips and shoulders horizontally parallel.

Benefits of Practicing Yoga

Yoga is incredibly helpful when it comes to healing Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) and other joint pain issues because of its mind-body-soul benefits. Physically, yoga helps with flexibility, strength training, and takes the pressure off overworking your joints while exercising. Mentally, yoga helps keep you relaxed and can help with managing stress, anxiety, and other mind-soul related issues you might be experiencing. The best part of yoga is that there are so many different practices to choose from. More gentle practices like Anusara, Hatha, or Iyengar are known to be a good fit for joint pain.

How to Properly Practice Yoga

As we mentioned before, there are all sorts of practices and stretches that you can perform during yoga. Following an instructor or guide is best when you are first starting out yoga, that way you can learn to perfect each move at home. The other great part about yoga is that there’s stretches and poses for every single part of your body! And of course, especially with yoga, listening to your body is the absolute most important fact to remember. For almost every stretch that you do, you should parallel the same on each side of your body, but don’t except it to always come at the same level of ease or comfort on each side, as our bodies aren’t always in balance.

Benefits of Cycling

Did you know that Rheumatoid Arthritis increases your risk and chance of cardiovascular disease, too? Don’t freak out just yet, though, we’re here to help with that, too. The best prevention to cycle away from heart disease is to keep up and maintain your heart’s health. And one of the best ways to do that is through cardio exercise like cycling. Along with that, biking around helps with RA by increasing your range of motion and strength in your legs, building endurance, and reducing stiffness.

Benefits of Pilates

Similar to yoga, practicing Pilates helps with the mind, body, and soul. Why is it specifically good for joint pain and those suffering with RA, though? Because the focused work-out on your abdominals and core are incredibly beneficial when it comes to relieving tension and stress on your joints. Practicing Pilates will also help with mobility and reducing stiffness, strengthening your muscles and reducing weakness in your joints, and keep you in an overall better mood!

Benefits of Water Exercises and Swimming

Did you know that exercising in the water is actually easier to do than outside the pool? There’s a reason why it’s easier for you to carry around your kids in the pool, and it’s because water actually supports body weight. However, water still provides resistance, which is why it’s the perfect place to be training, especially when it comes to RA and joint pain. There’s a reason why many physical therapists use pools for treatment, and it’s because water aerobics and swimming aid with range of motion, flexibility, endurance and stamina, and strength.