This series is meant to give you tips on what exercises you can do for major parts of the body.
You should get professional advice if you are uncertain about a problem with any part of the body or a serious underlying condition.
However, there are simple exercises you can safely do for a range of problems. If in doubt consult your physiotherapist or medical practitioner.
How to Do the Exercises
It is important to do the exercises well if you are to get the benefit and improve your condition.
- Do them regularly if you are going to do them at all. The tissues of the body respond to regular, repeated stresses to change how they behave. To achieve this you will need to repeat the exercises a number of times each day.
- Do each exercise individually. If you try and do two movements at once, you won’t do either movement well or to the maximum degree. This cuts down the effectiveness and may stress your joints more than you intend.
- Go to the end of each movement. There’s no point waving a joint around as it usually has problems at the end of its available movement. Move each joint to the end of its movement if you can.
- Do the movement slowly and steadily. Jerking or moving quickly can be painful and may not allow the opposing muscles to relax as the movement progresses.
- Pay attention to pain. This is a difficult one. Pain can mean you have an injury and you should not move a lot until it has healed more, but it can also be much less important. If your joint is stiff, you may need to stretch it and cause some pain if it is to loosen up. “Good pain” is not too severe and settles down quickly. “Bad pain” is severe and takes a long time to settle down after. If you cause pain on exercise, and you may have to, to succeed, aim for good pain.
- Set specific times to exercise throughout the day as this makes it more likely you will actually do them.
How Many Should I Do?
Difficult question and it depends…what kind of problem you have.
- Stiffness and no pain. Physiotherapists classify this kind of problem as non-irritable, meaning the problem can cope with a lot of physical stress, producing little pain which settles quickly to normal. You can push this kind of condition fairly hard and often, such as 10 movements/stretches every two hours (if necessary), going right to the end of the movement.
- Stiffness and pain. Here more care is needed, as the joint may be irritable and exercise stirs up the pain. A good rule is: if the exercise does not cause significant pain for a significant period of time afterwards, then you have it about right. You will be likely to feel some pain as you do the exercise and this is to be expected.
- Pain. Significant pain can stop you from wanting to move your joints and muscles, causing weakness and loss of movement. Appropriate movement can help pain, range of movement and muscle power. Here we need to be careful to strike a balance between putting enough stress on your joints and muscles and increasing your pain. A few movements a day may be enough for a very irritable joint.
Pay Attention to Feedback from Your Body
When you have done your exercises, how was it? If your pain is bad and lasts over 10 minutes or so you may have overdone it. If you have some discomfort but it is bearable and goes off quickly, that may be the right level of input.
If you have no sense of strain or stretch when doing your exercises you may be doing nothing at all. Adjust the level of your exercises depending on how your pain or stiffness problem behaves. However, this is not always simple so if in doubt get the opinion of a physiotherapist or other manual therapist.
Last Review Date: 08-12-2019
Next Review Date: 08-12-2021