The role of joint mobility training

The core function of joint mobility training is to maintain the normal range of motion of joints, protect joint functions, while reducing the risk of sports injuries, improving sports performance, and assisting in improving chronic joint discomfort. It is a basic training content covering all scenarios of sports fitness, postoperative rehabilitation, and daily care of the elderly.

To be honest, the runner I met in the rehabilitation studio can best explain the problem. He was 32 years old. He had been running half marathons for three years. His monthly mileage was stable at 80 kilometers. He also practiced leg strength training frequently and could do 100kg squats. Last month, his knees suddenly hurt so much that he had to struggle to go downstairs. An MRI showed no structural damage. In the end, it was found that the activity of the hip flexors was only 60% of the normal level. When squatting and stepping, he relied on his knees to compensate for the pain caused by grinding. He always thought that joint mobility training was just a "warm-up and a formality" and had never practiced it seriously. Later, he did hip mobility training for 2 weeks as planned, and 80% of the pain disappeared.

Many people's understanding of joint mobility training is still as "stretching" and "an accessory to the warm-up session". They even think that only injured people need to do it. In fact, this is far from the case. What’s interesting is that there was a quarrel in the sports circle about this two years ago. One group said that you must do static stretching to open the joints during warm-up, while the other group said that after static stretching, muscles will become loose and easy to get injured. Now, the industry has actually reached a more pragmatic consensus: there is no absolute right or wrong, it depends on the situation you use it. If you are going to play a competition or hit a heavy weight next, do dynamic joint activities as a warm-up, such as swinging your arms, rotating your hips, and walking with your legs high. This can quickly promote the secretion of synovial fluid in the joints and increase the range of motion without affecting the explosive power of the muscles. ； If you just sit for a long time and relax, or do low-intensity exercises such as yoga, static joint movement is no problem at all, and you don’t have to step on it.

I have come into contact with many patients after joint surgery. The most regrettable thing is that adhesions were left because they did not do joint movement training in the early stage. There was a 24-year-old boy who had an anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. The local doctor asked him to remove the cast before moving. As a result, after removing the cast for a month, his leg could only bend 30 degrees. It took 3 months to bend it to a normal angle. The pain made him cry every day. In fact, different rehabilitation schools have different opinions here. Many rehabilitation practitioners in Europe and the United States advocate very mild passive joint activities within one week after surgery to avoid adhesions. In China, it used to be more conservative and wait for the soft tissue to heal more stably before moving. Now it is actually slowly adjusting. The core is to look at the patient's degree of injury and healing ability, and what is suitable for you is the right one.

Talking about the daily life of ordinary people, don’t think that you don’t need to worry about joint mobility if you don’t exercise or get injured. There are a lot of friends around me who are in the office and are in their early thirties. Their cervical vertebrae click when they rotate, and they can’t touch their toes when they bend over. These are all problems accumulated from sitting for a long time. To put it bluntly, the joints are like door shafts. They become slippery when they are opened and closed normally every day. If you only open them to 30 degrees all year round, they will naturally rust over time, and they will squeak or even jam when you open them suddenly. I have previously taught my colleagues in the same department some simple cervical spine joint movements, which are done every hour for 3 minutes. You don’t need to use too much force and just feel a stretch. Most of them reported that the stiffness in their necks when they got up in the morning disappeared in half a month.

I have been practicing powerlifting for almost 8 years. I used to think that joint movement was a waste of time. I just shook my arms twice before lifting heavy weights every time. Last year, I suffered from acromion impingement pain for almost 3 months. It was difficult to even put on clothes and lift my arms, so I honestly put in the joint movement of the rotator cuff. The first 10 minutes of each training. After practicing for almost a year now, my shoulders have never hurt again. When pushing weights, the force exerted is much smoother than before. After all, only when the joints are active can the muscles exert force normally. Otherwise, it is easy to get injured if the joints are forced to carry the weight.

You don’t need to think about this thing too complicated, and you don’t need to devote an hour or two to practice. Spend 10 minutes before exercising, get up and move twice when you sit for a long time, and steadily progress according to the recovery plan after the surgery. It doesn’t take much time, and it can save you a lot of troubles such as being unable to sleep in pain and running to the hospital. No matter how you calculate it, it’s cost-effective.