Joint strengthening exercises to do at home

We all know staying fit and healthy has a big impact on our life and that strength training, especially as we get older, becomes more and more important to help keep us moving. You don’t, however, have to spend lots of money on gyms and personal trainers, when you can do simple exercises at home.

Below are detailed strength exercises you can do at home to help keep your joints strong.

Resistance bands

Resistance bands are inexpensive and are a great, easy way to exercise without over-exerting yourself. They help to trigger muscles that have been lying dormant to start doing their job again and to help you gain better mobility over time.

To get the most out of using them and any strength exercise, you must do each exercise slowly and controlled, through your largest ROM (range of movement). What you don’t want to do is pull the band forcefully when contracting and then let the band relax completely when returning to your start position. This won’t strengthen the muscles you are working, but in fact potentially hinder the increase of joint mobility.

You must sustain the correct posture during exercising, especially during resistance band work; move slowly and try to retain tension on the band throughout the whole movement.

Exercise No.1 - Front Pull Aparts

While holding the band at either end, lift your arms up and out in front of you, keeping them straight and your shoulders down.

Pull apart the band, remembering to do so slowly and with resistance, all while keeping a neutral position. You should be using your back muscles to perform this exercise, letting your shoulder blades move freely.

Do three sets of these, repeating the exercise ten times in each set. Once this becomes easier, up how many times you repeat the exercise within your set. For example, start at three sets of ten front pull aparts, then up to three sets of fifteen and so on.

Exercise No.2 - Shoulder Flexion

The daily activities in our life and the older we get sees gravity pulling our shoulders further forward. This exercise is great at helping to restore our muscles to where they should be and helps to provide better mobility and strength for our shoulders.

Start with the band as you did for the above exercise and pull the band apart. When you reach the point where you have pulled the band apart as much as you can with the same amount of resistance, move your (straight) arms upwards, towards your head. Again your arms need to remain straight and your shoulders lowered. Once you have reached head height, lower the band to where you started and repeat the process. Do the same amount of sets and repetitions as in the first exercise and increase these when you feel the exercise is becoming easy.

Exercise No.3 - Leg Raises

Sit on a hard backed chair with correct posture, lay the band out flat in front of you and step on it, holding onto either end. Bring up the ends of the band towards your lap.

Next, apply tension onto the band and lift your leg to become straight and up to hip height, then lower back to the ground. Repeat this ten times and then change to your other foot. Do three sets of ten on each foot, and up the repetitions when you feel this is becoming easy.

If you’re feeling adventurous or stronger, try doing this exercise lying down instead of sitting.

Weights

Now, we’re not telling you to lift 50kg and do a bench press, but holding a full tin of baked beans for example in each hand and performing bicep curls will do the trick too - just gentler.

Grip the tins by your side keeping your elbow tucked into your sides. Start lifting your forearm up to ninety degrees with the tins in your palms facing upwards. Once you get to ninety degrees, starting curling (bending) your arms upwards, towards your collarbone. Then return back down to your starting position.

Repeat these the same amount of times as the previous exercises and increase the total repetition number when it starts to get easy. You could also up the weight you use by using a small bottle of water, progressing up to a one litre bottle eventually.

Please seek medical advice before you proceed with any new exercise programme to make sure these are suitable for you.