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Tips to maintain healthy joints

Fitness expert Kristoph Thompson shares his tips in managing joint pain to help prevent sporting injuries and maintain healthy strong joints, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

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Managing joint pain is extremely important but difficult for any runner. So it is essential to keep a check on your body. Fitness expert Kristoph Thompson shares his tips in managing joint pain to help prevent sporting injuries and maintain healthy strong joints, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

• Maintain healthy weight: This can be beneficial on joints. One study claimed that losing about a pound of weight delivers almost a four pound reduction in knee joint load for each step.

• Warm up/cool down: Invest time to ensure the body is prepared for exercise by undertaking warm-up activities at the start of your session. The cool-down phase will help you to gradually reduce the intensity of activity and soreness in the joints and muscles.

• Strengthen muscles and increase flexibility: Flexibility injury can occur when a joint is taken outside of its comfortable range of motion. A good test of strength and flexibility is the wall squat. Stand facing a wall, with your feet just wider than the hip-width and your hands on your temples. Try to squat down so your thighs are parallel to the floor, without your knees or any other part of your body touching the wall on the way up or down. Aim to complete five squats standing just an inch away from the wall.

• Allow time for recovery: Knee injury can increase the chances of developing and aggravating osteoarthritis in many people. Should injury occur, allow enough time for full recovery and seek professional advice if symptoms persist.