Using Isometric Exercises to Reduce your Arthritis or joint Pain.

• Isometric exercises have been around for thousands of years. They can be found in certain forms of Yoga and Chinese Martial arts. What these exercises are, are basically static holds of different muscle groups. This type of exercising helps you work out faster and you protect the joint that the muscle groups support. Isometrics were the precursor to bodybuilding.

• Charles Atlas, the most famous of the body builders that used isometric exercises developed a course in which he implemented a series of tension exercises that included isometrics. Unfortunately, the use of isometrics became less popular as the world found out that many of the people that proclaimed the benefit of the exercises also used steroids.

• What are isometric exercises exactly; it is a form of resistance training. Basically what you are doing is contracting muscles and exerting pressure either against an immovable object or just simply holding the muscle in a contracted position for a certain period of time. It is vitally important that the joint associated with the muscle group be close to the muscle group.

• The benefit of doing isometric exercises for the person suffering from arthritis pain is that these exercises allow you to strengthen muscle and other associated support tendons and ligaments to the joint. While we have stated that moving the joint is important in order to alleviate pain, someone that is in a lot of pain may want to begin with this type of exercise until the muscle around the joint has gotten stronger.

• Remember that one of the draw backs to isometric exercises is that the length of the muscle never changes. This will weaken the endurance of the muscle. As that there isn’t a cure for arthritis , it becomes very important that you are doing exercises that will prolong the life of your joints. So using isometrics along with other exercise types is probably the most beneficial long term wise. Starting here is great, but variety in everything is always best.

• I also want to state that it is equally important that you remember that this isn’t going to be easy, and that giving up will not help your condition. Understanding your pain and why you are in pain is important to your long term happiness.

• Unless you suffer from arthritis, bursitis, gout or fibromyalgia it may be hard for you to understand the pain associated with it. For those of us that deal with it everyday, we all know that we have good days and bad days. Making sure that the exercise program we start is one that we can do on our good days and bad days. Knowing your self and listening to your body is important.

• Pain is different for everyone; even your own individual pain will be different from day to day. Therefore finding what works best for you is the best plan you can follow. While isometric exercises may work for you in the beginning they may not in the end, just as if they worked for another doesn’t guarantee that it will work for you.

Isometric Exercises are not for eveyone. Take a look at Tai Chi (video).

Watch this video on exercise on arthritis and joint pain.

Go back to the main exercise page.

Our video page has many more video selections on exercise.

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