You take care of your body. You eat well, exercise often and expect that results will follow. Maybe your goals are to lose weight and build muscle, or maybe you just want to fit into your old pair of jeans – whatever the goal, mobility and joint care is an essential component.
Exercise is very stressful! It places stress on the joints and ligaments, especially when you train with high resistance (heavy weights). If your goals are long-term, you need to include a complete mobility and joint care routine in order to optimise your health and fitness.
Here are three simple tips to improve and take care of your mobility and joints…
Tip #1 – Stay Hydrated
By far the most overlooked aspect of any workout program, especially when it comes to joint care. Our bodies are about 70% water, and our muscles thrive in a state of hydration.
Without hydrated muscles and ligaments your muscles will recover slowly and you will lose mobility between joints. Think of hydration as a lubricant for movement – without it, the joints seize up and lose function.
In order to stay hydrated you should drink 3-4 litres daily. After a workout you can replace lost water stores by drinking 600ml per pound of bodyweight lost.
Tip #2 – Supplement with Tumeric
The main reason you lack mobility and your joints are sore is because they are swollen (seriously). Especially after exercise, your joints, muscles and internal systems swell up – similar to a bruise, but it’s under the skin.
Turmeric helps to reduce swelling, especially in joints and has even been used as a clinical recommendation for osteoarthritis.
Tip #3 – Warm Up And Cool Down Each Workout
This may sound completely redundant but the truth is most people jump right into their workout without any muscle priming. Studies show that a complete warm up can actually boost performance in the gym and reduce the occurrence of injury.
Take care to create a warm up that is specific to your workout. If you are training chest, warm up your shoulders, chest, upper back and arms. Utilise movements similar to the ones you will be doing in your workout. If you are doing bench press, an easy exercise to warm-up is a push up.
In order to optimise your fitness and live a healthy life joint and mobility care cannot go unnoticed. Far too often it falls under the radar, people become injured and stop training.
Take care of your muscles and joints – watch the results come in faster than ever.
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