How to Improve Joint Health Without Supplements or Medicine

When people think of improving their joint health, they usually immediately think of glucosamine. This supplement, along with many other vitamins and nutrients, does play a major role in joint health. However, you can improve your joint health without supplements or medicine. One approach is to tailor your exercise regimen by incorporating several types of exercises that improve overall joint health and stability.

Things You'll Need

• Light hand weights (1 to 3 lbs.)

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Instructions

• 1

  Stretch every morning.

• 2

  Rotate your arms slowly in small and large circles. Practice leaning forward toward your toes and bending slowly side to side. These and other range-of-motion exercises relieve stiffness and increase your ability to move around doing normal, daily tasks. If you have balance issues, then these exercises can improve your condition but you must consult a physical therapist about the safest way to do them.

• 3

  Train with free weights. Hold a light weight in each hand and raise your arms to the side so the weights are at chin level and your elbows are sticking out like wings. You can also hold the weights at chest level with your arms bent, then flex your arms outward. This will strengthen your chest muscles while it improves your shoulder joints.

• 4

  Lunge. Doing as few as 20 lunges on each side each day can dramatically improve hip mobility and, over time, rebuild your knees. You can do this while holding the weights or not.

• 5

  Perform low-impact, aerobic exercise. Walking, biking and swimming are all good for your joints, but you need to work with a doctor since some of these activities will improve joint health for one condition while exacerbating it under another condition.

• 6

  Do isometric joint exercises in your spare time. Isometric exercises do not require any external equipment. They involve using pressure to strengthen joints. A popular joint exercise in this category involves placing the palms flat against each other at chest level and pushing them together at 15 second intervals. This strengthens shoulders, elbows and wrists.