Stretches and Exercises

Two main things to be aware of:

• Keep your spine in the neutral position
• Keep the pressure off of your joints – you don’t want pressure on your bony protuberances.

• Sleeping on your side:
• Make sure your pillow supports your neck so that your neck is not bent.
• Try out the SleepOvation pillow.
• Shoulder: create a canal for your shoulder by using a throw pillow – for shoulder pain, or as a preventative measure.
• or not sleep on the point of your shoulder, but roll back a little bit.
• If you have broad shoulders and/or broad hips, then you can use a towel roll/sleep roll around your waist to fill in the gap to support your back.
• You can also place a pillow/wedge between your knees when you sleep on your side.
• Sleeping on your stomach / prone:
• Don’t sleep on your stomach for more than 20 minutes.
• Joints don’t like to be at range for a long time.

• Maintain a good posture when sitting:
• move onto front of seat, sit up tall, feet planted firmly on the ground, knees over top of ankles, shoulders over hips, core is engaged, shoulders are down the back. Sit up really nice and tall.
• You can go through the entire cycle up to 3 times.
• 1. Hamstring Drop (strengthening your hamstrings): 10* on each side.
• 2. Leg Lifts (strengthen your quads – top of your thigh): engage your core, can bend your knees a little, toes pointed towards you, controlled movements. 10* on each side.
• Strong leg muscles help to absorb the impact, so that it doesn’t go into our knee joints.
• 3. Cat Cow: poor spinal flexibility can translate into hip pain or knee pain. Place hands on thighs or knees, for leverage.
• Breathe in, open your chest, bring your stomach forwards, and shoulders backwards, arch backwards.
• Breathe out, curl forwards and round your spine towards the back. Pull your core towards your belly button.
• 10 Breaths.
• 4. Side Lunge: 10 deep breaths on each side.
• This stretches your hip flexors and your quadriceps.
• “Leg Lifts” strengthens your quads, this exercise stretches them.
• Engage your core muscles. Press into your toes, squeeze your gluteus muscles and press your belly button inwards.
• 5. Clam Shells: 10*
• if you don’t have a band, you can use your hands to press the outside of your legs to create resistance.
• Feet together, firmly planted on the ground.
• Feel the squeeze on the outside of your hips (gluteus medius – stabilizing muscle).
• This exercise strengthens your gluteus medius muscle (outside of your hips).
• 6. Figure 4: 10 deep breaths.
• Now we’re going to stretch your gluteus medius muscle (outside of your hips).
• Keep your knee slightly bent, and cross your ankles.
• If you want to do a deeper stretch, then you can bend your knee on top of your opposite thigh (instead of just crossing at the ankles). Flex the toes back to protect the knee. Slightly press the knee backwards.
• If you can not take deep breaths and relax when you’re doing this stretch, then you’ve gone out a little bit too far.

15 Bad Habits Killing Your Joints – What to Do Instead:

1. Wearing high-heels.

2. Too much texting – Use voice text instead.

3. Sleeping on your stomach – our joints don’t like to be at end-range for an extended length of time. When you sleep on your stomach, your neck is at end-range for an extended length of time.

4. Not stretching enough – for stretching, do go to end-range, but not for an extended length of time.

5. Not getting enough restful sleep.

6. Smoking – smoking decreases the blood flow to the bones and the discs between the joints.

7. Not strengthening your muscles enough – when you strengthen your muscles, your bones thicken and prevents against osteoporosis as well.

8. Being overweight.

9. Always carrying a bag on the same side.

10. Poor back posture, such as a rounded-out posture. Keep the S-curve in your back.

11. Using tools that vibrates or produces a lot of stress (e.g. hand tools and garden tools, etc.), especially if you have arthritis.

12. Being on the computer too much, especially if you have poor posture.

13. Having poor form throughout the day (due to poor habits), e.g. standing on one leg, leaning on one side when sitting, or sitting on your ankle, etc.

14. Not moving enough. Joints love movement, even arthritic joints love movement.

15. Using smaller joints – avoid using your smaller joints whenever possible. e.g. a. When picking up a box, use your palms, instead of your fingers. b. Use your palm to open a jar, instead of using your fingers.