We humans often take our joints for granted. After all, they’ve been there our whole lives helping us stride, squat, reach, and lift our way through life. But as time passes, life takes its toll on these marvelous mechanisms in our body.
The joints that we are going to talk about here today are called synovial joints. They are made up of cartilage, synovial fluid, and synovium—the membrane that secretes synovial fluid. There are six types of synovial joints in your body: ball-and-socket, condyloid, hinge, pivot, plane, and saddle. And every single one of these types of joints feel the stress of hard use and injury over time.
How can you protect your joints to help them stay healthier and last longer? Joints can be replaced, sure, but their artificial replacements are far inferior to our natural joints, so doctors prefer to replace them only if the joint is irreparably damaged or their patient is old enough to justify putting in an artificial joint with a shorter use expectancy. Maintaining the joints you have is highly preferable!
Tips for Everyday Maintenance
- Move. Joints are made to move, not remain sedentary. Movement encourages the production and proper flow of synovial fluid, joint lubrication. This applies to standing still for hours at a time just as much as it applies to sitting still for long periods of time. Neither is good for you. Get up and move.
- Basic treatments. Never underestimate the power of soaking in a warm bath (with Epsom salts if you like), or simple hot and cold treatments on an aching joint. There’s a reason these methods have been used forever and a day.
- Work out. Regular exercise helps keep your body weight down, which relieves pressure on your weight-bearing joints. It also flushes unwanted cellular waste from your body—something that can make joints achy. Both cardiovascular workouts and strength training play a role here: cardio will boost your metabolism and get your joints moving, which will help you maintain healthy weight and function. Strength training will help your posture and balance, and help correct problem areas or old injuries.
- Eat healthy. A brightly colored plate filled with a wide variety of healthy foods will help ensure your body is getting the nutrients it needs. Your body is a machine and the food you eat is its fuel. Give it good fuel if you expect it to fun well. And if you need a little extra of something—glucosamine for joint support, calcium and vitamin K for bones, vitamin C for tissue repair, etc.—don’t be shy. Take a good supplement.
- Wear good shoes. Yes, those high heels are sexy. Yes, those boots or slick-soled dress shoes make you look like a stud. But your feet have 33 joints in them. Thirty-three! Your body’s weight and function impacts those joints every day. Just the simple act of walking forces 1.5x your body weight down onto your hard-working feet with each step. Give your body a good foundation by wearing smart shoes that give you what you need. Cushioning. Support. Impact absorption. Slight heel gradient.
There Are a Million More…
Of course everyone you talk to has advice for how to maintain healthy joints. There are lots of solutions out there—we’ve just outlined some of the basics. Good solid points that would make our grandparents wonder what kind of crazy people we are to not be doing these things already.
Here at Z-CoiL we can’t track your life’s movements and point out the things you need to correct. But we can provide good quality shoes that offer you a wonderful opportunity to able to move pain-free. Our shoes are well-researched, scientifically constructed, patented, and guaranteed to help reduce your foot pain or your money back.
