What you Knee'd to know about arthritis
The older we get, the more life’s twists and turns, bumps and bruises start to catch up with us, a concept which we can all understand. Generally, the wear and tear of life starts to impact our joints as we become more inactive in later life, and the self-repair of our joints starts to slow down, AKA normal ageing.
Our knees are commonly one of those joints in which we first start to notice this ageing process, and just like the hairs on our head going grey, there are normal ageing changes happening in the knee as well, however not as visibly noticeable as our greying hair.
As one ages past 50 and beyond, the chances of knee pain start to rise due to the years of wear and tear on our joints but more importantly its because people generally become less active around this middle age. We shall not dwell on the first aspect of this issue (life’s wear & tear) as turning back the clock and time travel is not part of a physio’s skillset. However, what is a part of our skillset is to detect and investigate the other more important and stronger correlation affecting knee pain and aging… CAUSE [lack of exercise] and EFFECT [muscle weakening and wastage].
It's a common myth that continuing running or other exercise later into life may lead to more knee pain, but I will tell you now that this is absolutely not true, in fact, the opposite is true. Scientific literature shows that for people over 50 that continued to exercise later into life, knee pain prevalence is a lot lower than for people who don’t exercise.
For a group of over50s those that continued to run showed half the incidence of Osteoarthritis then those that didn’t exercise. Yep, those that exercise are half as likely to have developed knee Osteoarthritis than those who didn’t exercise. This is due to the ability of exercise to support the knee across multiple bodily systems/functions which delays the aging process and invigorated the natural repair systems of the body!
Yes, after we’ve been inactive for a long time, getting back into exercise can be daunting, especially when you’re dealing with pain already, however, there is no better time than now and no I hope you understand WHY? … the how, what, where etc? That’s where the expertise of a physiotherapist can help you figure it all out with confidence.
Our Pilates X Functional Exercise classes are one of the most effective ways of you getting back into exercise in the safest way possible! If you would like to find out more about our physio-led exercise classes, give us a call to find out more!