Top Tips for Exercising with Severe Knee Arthritis

Knee arthritis is an incurable condition that causes pain, swelling, and stiffness in the knee joints. It’s also degenerative, leading the bone, cartilage, and tissues surrounding the joint to degrade over time.

While medical procedures are available, such as private knee replacements, they’re often only recommended for older patients since replacement joints won’t last forever. As a result, most treatments are designed to help individuals manage the condition and slow its progression, including exercise.

We all know how good exercise is for our minds and bodies. Some of its benefits include helping you maintain a healthy weight, strengthening the joints, and increasing your white blood cell count, which helps you fight illness.

Studies show that exercise effectively alleviates painful arthritic symptoms, but that doesn’t mean exercising with arthritis is easy.

On the contrary, those with the condition can sometimes be in so much pain that exercise feels impossible.

So how can those with the condition exercise without putting additional stress on their joints and giving up before they begin to experience the benefits?

Pick an Activity You Enjoy

Exercise doesn’t have to mean a hard slog at the gym, and the less it feels like ‘exercise’, the more likely you’ll enjoy yourself and keep doing it.

Think about what activities you enjoy doing. Do you like tending your garden? How about playing a round of golf? Pastimes like these provide a healthy dose of physical activity while outdoors giving your mental health a boost too.

Swimming is a particularly effective exercise for people with arthritis. It’s low impact, and the water will gently cushion your joints and reduce strain.

If exercising still feels like a chore, consider making it a regular arrangement with a friend. This will keep you accountable and motivated and give you the perfect excuse for a catch-up too.

Try Something New

You don’t always have to stick to what you know when it comes to exercising with arthritis, and trying something new could be just what the doctor ordered.

If you’ve never done yoga before, consider going to a class or watching guided lessons online. Yoga can help ease your symptoms by increasing the flexibility and strength of your joints, especially if your arthritis causes your knees to feel stiff and tense.

The gentle, sweeping movements from one pose to the next are also very meditative, leaving you feeling calm and relaxed.

You could also try tai chi. If you prefer your exercise without sweating buckets, you might enjoy this Chinese exercise — even if you might not immediately consider it an option for managing your arthritis.

It involves a series of slow, intentional movements, stretches, and deep breathing. Some evidence indicates that tai chi can improve mobility in the knees, and as “meditation in motion”, it can also work wonders for your mental wellbeing.

Take It Easy

The best practice you can engage in when exercising with arthritis is learning to listen to your body. The more exercise you can do, and the more often you can do it, the better, but there will inevitably be some days where your joints ache more than usual. Even a walk to the shops might put you out of action for the rest of the day.

On days you feel stiffer than usual, consider modifying your activity. For example, you might swap walking or bicycling for a swim or put your favorite upbeat music on and have a dance around the living room instead of braving the elements.

You might even choose to skip a day. The more in tune you become with your body, the more easily you’ll understand when it’s telling you to slow down or stop, and then you can reduce your activity for a few days accordingly.

If all you can manage is 10 minutes of yoga or stretching your legs around the garden once a day, that will be significantly more effective over the long term than a one-hour gym session you do once and then give up on because you’re still paying for it days later.

The key to any exercise is consistency, and your knees will thank you for it if you go slow, develop a routine and try to have fun.