Mel Robbins and Dr. V discuss why people with arthritis and joint pain avoid exercise. Dr. V explains that stiffness itself causes pain, and the stiffer a joint, the more painful it becomes. Movement actually reduces stiffness and alleviates pain.
A lot of people hear the word exercise and immediately think pain. Yeah, I'm— it's too stiff, you know. And a lot of people do feel a lot of pain, whether it's arthritis or it's back pain, or they have a replaced joint, or they're just tight.
Mhm.
Exercise isn't for people like me. What do you want to say to a person that feels that way, Dr. V?
I understand where they're coming from. Pain is a huge deterrent But what they don't understand is that stiff joints are painful joints. The stiffer you are, the more pain you're going to be in.
Wait, so if you're stiff already and you don't move, you're going to be in more pain? And stiffer.
So the joints thrive on motion. We build more joint fluid by moving our joints. So even if we're stiff, moving our joints will help us feel not stiff, not sick. Sitting down. Think about if you're sitting in a car for long periods of time, your 6-hour truck, you know, you get out of the car and you're stiff and everybody's getting out of the car a little stiff. Well, moving makes that go away, even if you have arthritis. So continue moving. The second reason we feel more pain with stiff joints or arthritis is because we don't have the muscle. Support above and below. For instance, when someone comes to me with knee pain, the first thing I do as I'm writing their notes is tell them we're going to get strong. We're going to get strong like a bull. We're going to build our butt, core, and hip. Why? My joints hurt. So that every time you take a step, it's not like putting a sledgehammer of two bones together. Muscle is shock absorbers, so we have less hard impact. So move, build muscle to get strong. So you may not feel like it. Let's say walking on the road hurts. Well, let's find a YMCA that has a hot pool. They're like community resources with sliding scales for the fees, right? They all have warm pools. You just get into chest-high water, don't even get your hair wet, pile it up. I've got all— listen, you cannot excuse me. I was just gonna say, there's nowhere to hide. There isn't. You don't have to get your hair wet. Get in the chest-high water. You just Walk back and forth because the buoyancy will help your pain. You really want to get out of pain in 7 days? You stop eating sugar of all kinds. Read the label so you know how much added sugar is in all this processed food we eat. Stop drinking juice and eating the fruit instead. I'm not kidding you. To a person, when they come back, they're like, you know, my joints felt better in about 7 days. These are all really simple things. So even if you are in pain, it doesn't give you license to do nothing.
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