If painful bones and aching joints are causing you problems, consider taking some time just for you. Various times we get so caught up with our to-do lists that we overlook our own needs. We tend to constantly put other’s needs above our own and just struggle with or attempt to ignore joint pain.

Take a minute (or more) to help you and your joint aches. Some good ways to relieve joint pain are:

• Hot bath with Epson salts - Epson salts assist to calm the nervous system and draw toxins from the body. Apart from the pain relief merits, they leave your skin smooth and soft and can help to relax you. When you add essential oils they add aroma-therapy, which can help calm down you and ease joint pain as well.
  

  Gentle massage of the joints that are painful is a great way to ease joint pain.

• Gentle massage - Gentle massage of the joints that are painful is a great way to ease joint pain, though it is probably best that a friend or a masseuse help you instead of you doing it yourself. When you do it yourself, particularly if your hands also suffer from joint pain, you may focus on the feeling of your hurting hands instead of on the area you’re rubbing.
• Lose weight – If you gaining extra weight, so are your joints. And the harder they work, the more likely they are to hurt. Consider modifying your diet or exercise if you need to, and your joints will thank you for it.
• Exercise - Attempt water aerobics or walking to help out loosening the joints without straining them. Sitting on an exercise ball can be an simple way to enhance your range of mobility, but don’t push yourself too hard. You may over do it!
• Take an anti-inflammatory - Over the counter pain relief may be helpful to decrease inflammation and tenderness in your joints. Be sure to take the proper dose and eat before hand so it won’t upset your stomach.
• Use a medicated balm or ointment - There is such a wide assortment of medicated creams out there now that you can even buy the ones that don’t smell like a medicine cabinet. If you use a heating cream, make sure you don’t wrap it or put a heating pad on it, as it could result in burns. Also, if you have restricted mobility, or loss of feeling, you should be careful to avoid burns.
• Use a joint-health supplement - Sometimes our bodies need a little help to restore and renovate. A joint-health supplement could be helpful, not only in relieving your pain, but also in reversing the negative effects of joint degeneration.
• See a doctor - Joint pain could be a sign of something more serious. Don’t put it off until it’s too painful to move. Even mild joint pain could be a sign of something more serious.
  You’re worth the little extra time it takes to relieve your pain. You may find that taking a break will not only help with rigid joints, but will also revitalize your spirits as well, making you better able to handle doing all the things you need to achieve each day.

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Joint mobility training involves actively moving your joints with the goal of maintaining or restoring your mobility. This therefore improves joint flexibility by reducing the excess tension surrounding the joints and by recovering the coordination of more efficient movement.

Usually people only move to a point where it is pain-free, not pushing through areas of tension. By working within these guidelines, you can reduce tension in the muscles surrounding the joints, speed recovery from exercise, and restore lost motion from past injuries.

This works through increased control over your movements you can restore proper posture and increase your movement efficiency. Emphasis placed on posture and controlled movement will help to re-educate the nervous system.

Moreover this can also help you deal with previous low back pain and avoid it from reoccurring. Also if you have had neck or shoulder injuries and problems in the past, this can reduce pain and release tension.

By moving every joint or groups of joints in an isolated way this will help restore or maintain mobility. This can be performed in a standing position to enhance posture. Simple rotations to start and then progressively more complex patterns involving multiple joints.

Additional moves such as Tai Chi, yoga, dance and the martial arts will further help the joint or group of joints, and then for movements that involve multiple joints.

By means of progressing from basic rotations to more difficult figure 8 patterns, your nervous system is provided with greater stimulus, which as a result adapts to this stress in a positive way.

Additional moves such as Tai Chi, yoga, dance and the martial arts will further help the joint or group of joints, and then for movements that involve multiple joints.

The foundation for joint mobility training lies in two areas. One, it works with your body’s reflexes to repair lost motion due to stress, poor posture, injury, and lack of movement. It seems that reflexes can impair joint function long after the threat of harm is gone.

Reflexes that were meant to protect the body, but are still active at a later time. The muscles adjoining a joint will tighten or reflexively spasm to protect a joint from anymore injury.

Meaning, movement has to be retrained following injury to restore proper function. Proprioception, which is the body’s ability to sense and feel where it is in relative to movement, is often impaired after injury. It needs to be re-educated in order to work correctly.

Therefore Joint mobility work does an outstanding job of retraining proprioception (re-educates the nervous system). By moving at a speed it can manage, in a range of motion that is pain-free, avoiding unnecessary tension, movement is progressively restored. Your movements become more capable, because you have greater control over them.

In summary according to Dr. Eric Cobb, you need to balance tension and relaxation in the muscles for optimal performance. While that may seem rather obvious, it’s a perfect example of how our multifaceted bodies often function in a straightforward manner.

Brian Morgan has been a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) since 1993. He is also a massage therapist, with 5 years experience working in rehab settings with people of all ages. For more information, go to http://www.brianmorganfitness.com

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