Is Walking Good for Arthritis?

Is walking good for arthritis? According to physicians and researchers, exercise can indeed help in easing stiffness and pain caused by arthritis. Is walking good for arthritis? The most important thing you have to remember before you do any type of exercise program, you have to first understand your body’s limitations as well as the level of exercise that will give you the best results. In this article, you’ll learn the answer to your question, is walking good for arthritis?

Is Walking Good for Arthritis: Why Exercise?

Is walking good for arthritis? Exercise is very important especially for people suffering from arthritis. This will help increase flexibility, combat fatigue, reduce joint pains, and also increase strength. Obviously if painful joins and stiffness are already giving you so much stress, the thought of exercising or walking can be overwhelming.

Is walking good for arthritis? Here’s the thing though, keep in mind that you can do baby steps with this. You don’t need to swim fast or even run a marathon for you to reduce the pain or symptoms brought by arthritis. You can do simple exercises that will enable you to not just maintain a healthy weight but also eventually ease the pain. The secret is this: exercising and walking is key to overcome the threat of arthritis immobilizing you.

Why Exercise is Important

Is walking good for arthritis? Exercise such as walking can ultimately improve your fitness and health. You can do simple things without hurting your joints. An arthritis treatment program can give you benefits that can help you maintain bone strength, give you energy throughout the day, strengthen muscles around your joints and also provide you with a good night sleep. It can also lead to enhancing the quality of your life and improving your overall balance.

Is walking good for arthritis? What a lot of people worry about is that exercise will aggravate the pain and stiffness in the joints. This is false. In fact, lack of exercise can make your joints even more stiff and painful.

This is because the muscles and surrounding tissues are very important to maintaining support for your bones. If you don’t exercise or walk around, it will weaken the supporting muscles thus creating more stress on your joints.

Exercises for Arthritis

Is walking good for arthritis? Your physical therapist will most likely recommend different types of exercises that includes the following:

• Strengthening Exercises
• Range – of – Motion Exercises
• Aerobic Exercises

Range – Of – Motion Exercises

Is walking good for arthritis? The exercises involve in this group can help relieve joint/ muscle stiffness which will increase your ability to move your joints through using a full range of motion. The exercises involve may include movements like rolling your shoulders forward/ backward, raising your arms and the likes. The best part about this is that you can easily do it on a daily basis.

Strengthening Exercises

These exercises can help you build strong muscles which will then protect and support your joints. Weight training is an example of this because it won’t only help you maintain your weight but also strengthen your muscle. Keep in mind that you need to avoid exercising many times in a row. You have to set aside a rest day between your workouts. If you think your joints are swelling or painful, make sure to take a day or two to rest.

Whenever you’re starting strength – training exercise, this is typically done thrice a week as it will help improve your condition. However, twice a week is already good enough as well.

Aerobic Exercise

Is walking good for arthritis? Endurance exercises such as aerobic can ultimately help your overall fitness. It doesn’t only help you with your arthritis condition but also improve your cardiovascular health, increase stamina and also help you control weight.

Some examples of low – impact aerobic exercises that can be easy on your joints include cycling, walking, swimming or using a treadmill/ elliptical machine. You can work your way up to around 150 minutes of moderate aero workout per week. You can also split that into 10 – minute blocks if that will make it easy for your joints.

Moderate aerobic exercise is the most effective and safest way for patients diagnosed with arthritis. It can be done twice or thrice a week but it surely is better than no exercise at all. In order to determine if you’re properly doing it or you’re improving, you should be able to carry a conversation during the exercise though the rate of your breathing might increase a bit.