Does weight-training damage our joints in the long-term?
In the past it has been thought by many that lifting weights could be detrimental to our joints. It is not uncommon to see people who train regularly and who are also dealing with some sort of injury.
The truth is that lifting weights regularly, during your whole life, is probably the best thing you can do to your joints.
Lifting weight does several things as written in this article:
It improves muscle tissue due to the weight stimulus. Muscle strengthens as a result.
Muscles pull via tendons which in turn pull on bone. This strengthen both the bone and the tendon.
Cartilage is preserved. If you’re arthritic or are pre-arthritic weight-lifting will delay arising issues and pain.
Synovial fluid, which is the substance in your joints that lubricates everything for a smooth operation, gets produced more and it grows in quantity and quality.
Training improves range of motion, meaning how mobile your joints are. Your ROM (range of motion) of the joint increases and maintains optimal movement range due to it being challenged over and over again with weights.
Your muscle activation (neuromuscular signal) from the brain strengthens. This means your brain learns to activate more muscle fibres and to do it faster and better.
This is a whole bunch of very important benefit for quite a simple action.
The only risks arise when there is no-warm up and through over training. Over training means that you’re doing too much and not giving your body time to recover.
If you use good technique, which a fitness coach or personal trainer can help you with, you are on your way to making your body much healthier, stronger and with less pains (ultimately none hopefully).
So if you are considering training and lifting weights do not worry about your joints hurting in a few years. It will be the exact opposite effect. You will feel better and stronger than ever.
Alessandro
