Children and adolescents
Children’s bones have not yet fully hardened, which means they are much less likely to suffer from long-term problems after an injury, or even fractures. “They have growth plates, which allow bones to lengthen and develop,” says Mehmet Gem, a specialist hip physiotherapist and regional head at Pure Physiotherapy in Exeter, speaking through the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy. The only disadvantage is that a child practices his favorite sport too much and the boards become irritated. “If you have someone who plays a lot of football, he or she may develop heel or knee pain.” If this happens, they can continue to do the activity, just less of it, ‘within what the pain allows and without further irritation. The less they avoid, the better, so they stay strong and aren’t afraid to take it up again.
You can’t prevent children from jumping off walls, but occasionally the resulting ankle sprains can cause recurring symptoms. Sprains affect the soft tissues, most commonly the ligaments, and usually, says Gem, “if you deal with them with regular daily activities, the symptoms will subside and go away. If it is bruised and swollen, it needs targeted rehabilitation.” This is when you should seek a referral to a physio, “to address the resulting weakness of the injury and make it less likely to happen again”.
Variety is key: Matt Todman, from Six Physio in London, is shocked when he sees children taking to jogging: “It’s much better for children to play team sports and games that are multi-directional and twist and turn – children have so much more stimulation and variety needed.”
Young adult to mid-thirties
Todman believes that in your 20s, having fun should be your priority. “Our bodies are adaptable and we can regenerate tissue much faster because more cells are captured and fewer are killed. In my experience, around 35 is the top of the hill.” So your mid-30s is the time when your muscles and bones gradually start to weaken, and that is necessary build bone and muscle strength to future-proof your joints. “The exercise you do today will have a big impact on what happens tomorrow.” If we allow our bone density and muscle volume to decrease, we are more susceptible to falls and hip fractures later on. The answer, says Todman, is “weight-bearing, weight-bearing, and resistive exercises in the gym, using weights, resistance bands, and gravity.”
Yoga can also be weight-bearing – especially dynamic versions with side planks and other poses that use body weight to build strength. But beware, Todman says, of classes that focus more on stretching. “You need to have some control over the movement rather than pushing things to the end of your range,” he says. “If you have a repetitive musculoskeletal problem, yoga can make you feel better, but this is instant gratification rather than getting better. You need to know why the tissue is tight.’ If you have tight hip flexors in front of the hips, instead of stretching, you probably need to tighten your glutes more to solve the problem. It takes more than six weeks of daily practice to see results: “Doing squats, reverse lunges, forward lunges, step-ups, step-downs, hip thrusts – anything where you feel your butt working hard, rather than just your glutes. thighs.”
1940s
Joint pain as we age is increasingly due to osteoarthritis, which involves the entire joint, says Zoe Paskins, a rheumatologist at Keele University. “It’s not just the bone or cartilage, it’s the muscles, tendons, lining, ligaments and blood system.” When worn out, the body responds with repair and inflammation. “Usually that recovery process is activated and then maybe calmed down again,” she says. Therefore, the pain in osteoarthritis is not consistent – this is good news. “It can be even better,” says Paskins. Activity over rest is again key, both in prevention and recovery. “Strong muscles take more pressure off the joint. So activity doesn’t hurt.”
Men and women should pay more attention to bone and joint health from the age of 40. For women, says Todman, “as you approach the other side of menopause, the rate at which old bone is broken down becomes out of balance with the rate at which new bone is created.” The good news is that by increasing weight and strength exercises, eating enough calcium, and avoiding vitamin D deficiency in the winter, which can lead to poor calcium absorption, you can counteract this effect. If HRT is right for you, it can also reduce the risk of osteoporosis.
Women in menopause and perimenopause are also more likely to experience pain on the sides of the hips. “Hormonal changes negatively impact tendon health, leading to pain that can even resemble that of an arthritic hip,” says Gem. “Patients often have difficulty lying on their side, sitting cross-legged or exercising.” It’s not just the hips that are affected – it can also be the sudden onset of “tennis elbow” – and if a joint starts to hurt, says Todman, “you start to move poorly, and that poor movement pattern makes your symptoms worse” . This is when you should visit a physio to get exercises to correct strength imbalances.
For men, says Gem, “bone mass density is closely linked to serum testosterone levels, which decline by 1% annually.” Later in life, he says, this can lead to “osteoporotic changes, making it even more relevant to stay strong and maintain that bone density.” Weight-bearing exercises are often the most effective for bone density, but finding an exercise you enjoy can be more effective if you’re more likely to do it.
The temptation in middle age is often to go crazy with exercise before it’s too late, which often leads to injuries that hold back new regimes. “People are normally pretty good for this initial six-week period,” says Todman. “They start running, hitting tennis balls, or going to the gym, and then all of a sudden their shoulders are sore or their butt is tight because they’ve done way too much, way too fast.” He recommends tackling the NHS Couch to 5K app, which takes five weeks to build up to running 5K, even though “most people can probably run 5K tomorrow. But it’s this very gradual and specific loading program so that your joints get used to it and you don’t have any problems after six weeks,” says Todman.
1950s
Balance declines after age 60, making joint damage from falls more likely. So when you’re fifty, you have to prepare. “Pilates, yoga and tai chi are brilliant at maintaining your joints’ range of motion,” says Todman, while the first two also increase flexibility, “as do swimming and passive stretching.”
All this also builds confidence, which helps with recovery, pain perception and avoiding the fear that keeps us from doing things that are good for us, for fear that we will hit our back or twist an ankle. Googling symptoms, on the other hand, will do the opposite. “You’ll encounter worst-case scenarios and that increases the fear that that’s it, you’re stuck in pain now, when in reality there’s a lot you can do,” says Gem.
60’s
By then, Todman says, “we should all be very happy to stand on one leg for thirty seconds.” So stand on one leg when you brush your teeth. If that is easy, also close your eyes when standing on one leg, or try standing on your toes on one leg.” We also need to work on deft side stepping, he says. “When we fall, it’s rarely forward, so things like grapevine movement in aerobics, where one foot goes behind the other as you move sideways, are really good for people in their 60s and older to get that coordination.” to get.”
Keep running or doing what you love for as long as you can. “People think running is bad for your knees and hips,” says Todman, “when there is plenty of evidence that runners are less likely to develop osteoarthritis. It’s really good for your joints – use it or lose it.”
People over 70 years old
It’s important to maintain strength throughout your life and while the most popular examples of this online, Gem says, “are the exercises that look the sexiest and most complicated, some of the more simple exercises are my basic exercises.” A key example is that if squats have become too much, simply doing repetitions of the sit-to-stand movement is crucial and challenging. “Step-ups are great too,” says Gem. “Not only to work on the control and strength of one leg, but also to improve the stability of one leg.” Variations to increase difficulty include increasing step height or holding weights. “These types of exercises, says Gem, “not only improve bone and joint health and muscle strength, but they help people feel more physically robust and resilient, and reduce the number of falls.”