Effects of Strength Training - 2

Next on our list of effects of strength training:  improved joint function.

How many of us find that we have a knee or a hip or a shoulder that doesn’t always behave the way we’d like it to, or the way it did back in the day?  Most of us, right?

 

Strength training to the rescue!

 

So, first a disclaimer.  We cannot actually strengthen joints.  Joints are intersections where bones come together.  They’re more of a location than an actual thing.  When we talk about strengthening joints, what we really mean is strengthening the muscles and other tissues that surround joints.

 

Many of the joints in our bodies are synovial joints.  We don’t need to go into all that that means, but we do need to know that the way that nutrition gets into synovial joints is through movement rather than through our circulation.  Feed the hips and give them a shake or two!

 

Our bodies, by nature, adapt to the challenges we give them.  When we give our bodies weights to play with, we get stronger and our joints adapt to their new reality.  We want to ensure that we give our bodies appropriate challenges:  no 300 pound deadlifts on the first day, babe.  We increase our weights gradually, allowing our tissues the time they need to grow and change.

 

Similarly, we become what we do.  When we take all of our joints through their full range of motion on the regular, they like it.  They habituate themselves to that kind of movement and it gets easier.

 

Go do it.