We love health and wellness expert, Kris Abbeys approach to wellness, which is a holistic and realistic one combining fitness, nutrition, and mental well being. Here are Kriss tips on how to best reduce the impact of exercise on your joints:
1.Always warm up before moving into high impact activities.
2. Engage your core, this helps with posture and supports your back.
3. Stretch and cool down after exercise, gardening, even gentle walking.
4. Variety is the spice of life. Mix up your exercise routine so you dont over-use or put too much repeated impact through your joints.
5. Add strength workouts to your exercise repertoire. This builds your muscles surrounding your joints giving them added support.
6. Wear the right gear, especially a good pair of cushioned runners. And have the right equipment. A bat too heavy, a surf-board too light means something has to compensate, generally your technique which increases your risk of injury.
7. Perform your high-impact exercises on a surface that will absorb some of the impact (soft grass, trampoline, soft sand, water and artificial turf to name a few).
8. You can also improve your diet to help support your joints and reduce the effect high-impact or repetitive activity. Keep your diet loaded with fresh fruit and vegetables, getting the right (lean) protein and limiting acid forming foods (processed food, sugar, alcohol, too much coffee, too much dairy, too much red meat and high fat foods). Acid forming foods cause inflammation at a cellular level, which can impact joints.
9. Use supplements for support and prevention. Rose-Hip Vital with GOPOis 100% natural and clinically proven to improve joint health. It offers other benefits as well such as being a great antioxidant (helps mop up the toxins your body produces during exercise), and contains Vitamin C, which supports the immune system important if you over do things.
10. Try to maintain a healthy weight carrying excess weight has a major impact on your joints (especially your knees and back).
Kris Abbey (BA Ed Phys Ed & Sci) runs a boutique fitness centre on the Northern Beaches of Sydney and has recently revamped her website offering some great new year wellness programs.
