It is widely known that strength training has a variety of benefits on the human body and performance. However today we are going to focus purely on the benefit of training for the joints. Also known as weight training and resistance training, people have been training strength for thousands of years, using a variety of techniques and methods. However as sports science has developed, the way strength training has changed is phenomenal. Let's now look at the way that joints benefit from strength training:
- Increase The Strength Of The Muscle Around The Joint:
This is important as if the muscles are strong around a joint, it will take stress off the ligaments and tendons (connective tissue). Let's look at a practical example, if you have strong biceps and wish to pick something up with a slightly bent arm, your biceps will take the majority of the load. However if you are not strong in your biceps, it will in fact be your tendon which takes the load. If your tendon takes most of the tension, it means the tendon is more susceptible to injury!
- Lubricates The Joints
All of our joints are full of sacs of fluid, the fluid is known as synovial fluid. This acts a lubricant which allows our connective tissue and bones to articulate with each other during movement. During strength training, you are constantly moving your joints in a full range of motion (very important). This encourages the body to produce synovial fluid, which keeps the joints healthy and moving. If you live a sedentary lifestyle or do not move your joints through their full range, it can inhibit the production of synovial fluid. The limited amount of fluid can cause rubbing, irritation and inflammation of the articulating surfaces. This will make your joints stiff and limit movement, which could potentially lead to arthritis.
- Increases Bone Quality, Density And Strength
Strength training is a perfect way of loading and stressing your bones; just like your muscles, the more you train them, the stronger they are. This is especially important for the elderly, the stronger your bones, the less chance of you become osteoperotic. Osteoperosis is the process of your bone density reducing and some cases crumbling away. This means that say during a fall, it is more likely that they will break a bone than someone who has been weight training!
- Dependant On Training Style - Can Keep Excess Weight Off
Maintaining a healthy weight is pretty essential to everyday living, but it is also important for your joints. If you are at a healthy weight, it will take pressure off your joints. The less stress on your joints the better as this will help reduce the chance of being in pain. If you are considerably overweight, it can have an adverse effect on your body by putting too much load on your joints, which can cause damage.
- Increase Joint Stability
This is an important factor for our stabilising joints. For example the ankle, if you have a stronger set of muscles and connective tissue around the ankle, the less chance there is of you twisting it whilst running. If you are weak around the ankle, there is more chance of you spraining the ligaments or twisting the ankle as the stabilising muscles are not strong enough to keep it in a strong shape.
The same can be said of the shoulder, the stabiliser muscles of the shoulder joint need to be strong. The shoulder's main function is to be mobile, however if the joint is mobile but does not have the stability it can cause serious issues. An overly mobile or unstable shoulder can be more prone to dislocation or injury!
And that concludes this short article on how strength training can benefit your joints! We hope that this is enough to persuade or inspire any reader to take up strength training. Keep an eye out in the future for an article where we look at the other many positives of strength training. Think we missed something? Anything you disagree with? Then please feel free to leave a comment below, message us on social media or drop us an email! We look forward to hearing from you!
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