Naturally Optimizing Joint Health for Longevity

How Do You Train Joint Health?

In order to answer this question we have to first get to know a little more about joint health.

A joint is an area of the body where two bones (sometimes more) meet. For a lot of us this is where the definition of a joint ends, but I’d like to invite you to think a little bit deeper. Since bones can't move on their own, joints are important because they allow movement. Just imagine if our arms didn't have elbows and connected straight from the shoulder to the wrist! 😂 Because of this, it's also important to discuss the other tissues that make up a joint, like muscles, ligaments, tendons, and fascia that help control how our joints move.

The shape of the bones determines the type of joint. For example, a ball and socket joint is where one bone has an end that fits perfectly into a depression, or “socket” of another bone. The hip joint and shoulder joints are examples of this type of joint.

The elbow is a hinge joint, where the rounded (concave) condyles of the femur fit into the shallow depression (convex) shape of the tibial condyles. This shape allows the knee to flex, extend, and let's not forget, rotate!

The Joint Health Crisis: A Neglected Aspect of Fitness

Musculoskeletal disorders are affecting more people than ever before. What is a musculoskeletal disorder? These are problems with muscles, bones, and joints, like back pain or arthritis. The National Library of Medicine reports these disorders are some of the most expensive and disabling health issues in the United States.

A study done between 2013 and 2015 showed that over 126 million adults had a musculoskeletal condition. This caused people to miss over 264 million workdays and led to a loss of $381 billion in annual earnings in 2015.

One major problem with how joint health is currently addressed in the fitness industry is the lack of attention given to specifically training our joints. Each joint has a specific “job” to do, or said another way, specific ways it should be able to move.

A healthy joint will be able to articulate (anatomy speak for “move”), without restriction, in all the ranges of motion it was designed to move. In other words, a healthy joint is a joint that has its full function, or full capacity.

By contrast, an unhealthy joint will not be able to move in all the ways it’s meant to. When a particular joint can’t move the way it’s meant to when the body needs it to do something like be part of a movement (such as taking a step forward), the body will simply “borrow” motion from another joint(s) to make sure the action of taking a step forward happens successfully.

This “borrowing” strategy from neighboring joints is known as a compensation. If left unaddressed, over time compensations are often the underlying cause of feeling tight, stiff, unstable, or weak, which are all symptoms of repetitive stress injuries that often occur over years and years of compensatory movement.

For example, if someone has a hip joint that does not have properly functioning gluteal (glute) muscles, that hip will “borrow” from another muscle group like the quadriceps or TFL (tensor fasciae latae) muscles to make sure the task of whatever movement is being done is successful. In this example, these people can often be described as “quad dominant” due to their glutes being weak and constantly getting help from the quads. This can lead to overdeveloped quadricep muscles that have gotten used to doing some of the job the glute muscles should be doing in addition to their own.

The reason all of this is so important is because we need to understand that healthy joints have very little to zero compensation. This allows for us to move with minimal extra strain on the body because each of our joints is essentially ready for any action that is asked of it, rather than needing to get help from its neighbor.

The Missing Link in Fitness: Why Joint-Specific Training Matters

In mainstream fitness there is a lot of of talk about "joint health" but very little attention paid to training joint motion. Rather, attention is paid to training movement patterns, such as squats, deadlifts, bench press, kettlebell swings, the list could go on and on. The problem with training patterns is the underlying assumption that the joints which combine together to create them are healthy enough to do them - and the unfortunate reality is that most people do not have that base level of joint health.

Traditional strength and conditioning exercises like the ones mentioned above are still used in mainstream fitness simply because that is always how it's been done. The foundation of many current strength training practices developed from professional strength sports, but we know now that sports performance and health performance are not the same thing.

Sports performance is specific to that activity and quite frankly doesn't align to the needs of the average human. The purpose of working out is to prepare and maintain our bodies to be able to do the things we need and ask them to do. However, the rates of exercise-related injury rose 10% between 2011-2019 according to a study published in The Journal of American Preventative Medicine in 2021, with over 8 million adults per year reporting injury from exercises-related activities. At a bare minimum this demonstrates that what we are doing in fitness to prepare our bodies for life isn't working.

So what's the solution?

I'm not saying that training patterns is a bad idea. Rather, I want to encourage people to expand their training toolbox to include additional ways of training that will improve everything else they’re already doing. Just like we train strength to pick up heavy things by doing squats or deadlifts or train our heart (aerobic capacity) to be able to run a marathon, there are ways to train your joints to be better at simply being a joint.

Joints that move better, do better. Better squats. Better deadlifts. Better efficiency of breathing mechanics which then improves our aerobic capacity. All of it.

Prepare Your Joints For Anything: Introducing Kinstretch

Kinstretch is a form of training that builds joint strength to develop maximum body control, flexibility, and useable ranges of motion.

One of the foundations of Kinstretch is a movement known as (CARs), or Controlled Articular Rotations. CARs are joint-specific exercises that train each joint to move as it is meant to, which over time can significantly improve joint health.

By practicing CARs you can also learn the invaluable ability to self-assess how well your joints are moving, while also learning how to address common issues you may find. This process builds a deeper awareness and stronger connection to your body - by understanding how your body is designed to move and how to give yourself what you need to heal you can revive your movement, revive your body, and revive your life.

Stay tuned for my next article where I will dive deeper into all things Kinstretch, joint health, and how to heal your body from the inside out.