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Our fitness expert weighs in on exercises and products for arthritis pain relief

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Our fitness expert weighs in on exercises and products for arthritis pain relief

What are one of the best workouts and merchandise for arthritis ache?

Whereas train is essential for anybody, these with arthritis know the significance of staying energetic. Sadly, ache within the again, hips or knees means there are a restricted variety of workouts you may safely carry out. When you’re struggling to seek out the correct workouts that can assist you keep match and maintain arthritic ache to a minimal, you’re not alone.

As a efficiency enhancement specialist and founding father of Critical Health, Judd NeSmith is aware of the way to assist people obtain optimum health. So, we requested for his recommendation on one of the best workouts and merchandise for arthritis ache reduction.

What to find out about arthritis 

What’s arthritis?

With over 100 sorts of arthritis, it’s truly not a single illness and might’t be linked to a selected trigger. As an alternative, arthritis is commonly used to confer with joint ache or joint illness. A number of widespread sorts embrace osteoarthritis, which is when the cartilage cushioning the bones rubs away, and inflammatory arthritis. Inflammatory arthritis contains rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis and gout. “Generally it’s only a matter of being born with that sure genetic card for arthritis to run within the household,” NeSmith stated.

Suggestions for managing arthritis

  • “Train isn’t going to heal arthritis. Nonetheless, it could actually stop it from changing into worse. Train will construct a stronger joint, add lean muscle and supply extra stability,” NeSmith famous.
  • Therapeutic massage is superb for arthritic irritation. If in case you have a therapeutic massage gun, use the small finger attachment and work it across the forearm muscular tissues connected to your hand.
  • A technique train relieves ache is by selling blood movement. Elevated blood movement warms the comfortable tissue up, making it extra pliable.
  • Gaining weight over time can put an excessive amount of stress on the joint and trigger arthritic ache. Shedding pounds will particularly reduce the pressure in your hips, knees and ankles.

Workout routines for arthritis ache reduction

No matter the kind of arthritis, staying energetic is among the finest methods to enhance the ache. In response to NeSmith, “Beginning some sort of straightforward train routine may make an enormous distinction down the road. It actually would enhance ache, enhance mobility and make you stronger.” Nonetheless, the workouts that can profit you rely on the place your arthritis bothers you probably the most.

Arthritis within the backbone or again

Ache within the backbone or again is widespread as you become old because of defective motion patterns and unhealthy posture. To alleviate the ache, you’ll need to give attention to strengthening the middle-upper again, which can in the end enable you to get again into correct alignment.

Resistance bands will likely be useful for again workouts, however be sure that they’ve a deal with. NeSmith recommends doing standing band rows to enhance your backbone or again ache. For this train, connect the band to a pole, door or one thing stable. Whereas dealing with the pole, seize the resistance band underhanded and pull it towards your stomach button, conserving your palms shoulder-width aside. “Doing three units of 15 reps with consistency each different day can actually assist an individual enhance cervical backbone ache because of arthritis,” he stated.

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Arthritis within the hips

When you primarily really feel ache in your hips, modified squats would be the most helpful train. As an alternative of squatting all the best way down, customise this transfer by solely taking place a part of the best way or through the use of the wall or a chair for help. Modified squats is not going to solely strengthen the quadriceps round your knee, hamstrings and glutes, however they may also improve blood movement across the joints. Whereas it looks like a easy train, NeSmith finds it to be probably the greatest methods to handle and even decelerate arthritis.

Arthritis within the palms

One of many easiest methods to reduce arthritic ache in your palms is to train utilizing hand strengtheners, corresponding to grip balls or hand grippers. It promotes blood movement to the palms and strengthens the fingers. To do that correctly, put each fingers and thumb across the deal with. Purpose to succeed in for 20 to 30 reps thrice a day.

Arthritis within the knees

Sporting a knee brace whereas strolling or exercising is crucial for anybody with arthritis of their knees. A number of really useful workouts embrace modified squats and calf stretches. Knee arthritis is widespread, and sadly, typically knee substitute surgical procedure is the best choice. Nonetheless, NeSmith cautioned that whilst you might really feel like you might have a model new knee, you must nonetheless restrict the quantity of exercise. 

Greatest merchandise for arthritis ache reduction

TheFitLife Train Resistance Bands with Handles

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With a sturdy carabiner and adjustable stress stage, customers can customise the resistance stage by stacking a number of bands. This set contains two cushioned handles, a water-resistant carrying bag, two ankle straps and 5 labeled anti-snap latex bands in various resistance ranges.

Offered by Amazon

Serenilite Hand Therapy Exercise Stress Ball

Serenilite Hand Remedy Train Stress Ball

This bundle features a soft-, medium- and hard-density ball with a high-resistance gel core and easy lycra material. They’re sturdy and hypoallergenic, they usually retain their form.

Offered by Amazon

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Sklz Grip Strength Trainer

Sklz Grip Energy Coach

Since you may simply modify the resistance stage from 20 kilos to 90 kilos, this grip energy coach is right for all coaching ranges. It’s compact sufficient to tackle the go and has a curved design and anti-slip deal with to offer safety and luxury.

Offered by Dick’s Sporting Items and Amazon

 

Shock Doctor Bio-Logix Knee Brace

Shock Physician Bio-Logix Knee Brace

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The bilateral aluminum hinges will present help throughout exercising whereas permitting a pure vary of movement. As well as, this knee brace makes use of a compression sleeve and a mixture of soppy and inflexible supplies to offer most consolation.

Offered by Dick’s Sporting Items and Amazon

Copper Fit ICE Knee Compression Sleeve

Copper Match ICE Knee Compression Sleeve

This knee compression sleeve options the cooling sensation of micro-encapsulated menthol to cut back stiffness and ache. Plus, the anti-chafing seamless design and four-way stretch make sure you keep snug.

Offered by Dick’s Sporting Items and Amazon

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Theragun Elite Massage Gun

Theragun Elite Therapeutic massage Gun

Ease stress, launch soreness and tame arthritic irritation with this ultra-quiet therapeutic massage gun. It options 120 minutes of battery life and connects to your smartphone with Bluetooth.

Offered by Theragun and Amazon

 

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Bre Richey writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped thousands and thousands of customers simplify their buying choices, saving them money and time.

Copyright 2022 BestReviews, a Nexstar firm. All rights reserved.

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Fitness

Staying fit as you age isn't just about exercise. Experts say to prioritize these 4 habits

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Staying fit as you age isn't just about exercise. Experts say to prioritize these 4 habits

Dr. Bill Dorfman, a 64-year-old cosmetic dentist in Southern California, prides himself on looking years younger, a characteristic he attributes to good genes and a daily workout regimen. 

Three days a week he focuses on abs and cardio; the other days are for lifting light weights at high reps. 

Dorfman says he got serious about exercise following a lull during dental school when he found himself frequently in pain. That’s when he realized his fitness had taken a back seat following years as a high school swimmer and gymnast. “What I found was the more I exercised, the better I felt,” he says. 

Outside of the gym, he credits his daily Words With Friends habit with keeping his mind sharp. He also makes nightly dinner plans with various friends to stay connected.

Dorfman’s wellness habits underscore that one key to a longer life is a fitness regimen—but one that incorporates mental and emotional fitness as well. 

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“We really need to look at the life of an older adult with a holistic lens—if they’re really happy, healthy and whole,” says Dor Skuler, cofounder and CEO of Intuition Robotics and an expert on loneliness in aging adults.

Here’s are four ways to focus on whole-body fitness as you age.

1. Exercise for the body and brain

Staying physically active can prevent injuries and help the body heal faster when they happen, plus it’s also strongly linked to good mental health and brain function. 

Kirk Erickson, Ph.D., director of Translational Neurosciences at AdventHealth Central Florida, where he studies the plasticity and modifiability of the brain systems, has found physical activity to be one of the best ways to keep the brain healthy throughout its life span. 

Erickson’s research shows that as we age, the brain shrinks, specifically the hippocampus, which is responsible for memory formation. Exercise can help maintain this portion of the brain and, in some cases, increase the size. There’s much to be learned about how and why this is, but Erickson says the effects are better the longer you engage in these habits, so it’s good to start young.

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Of course you can still reap the benefits if you start later in life, he says. You might find that with time, you can recall memories and information more easily and have better executive function and a longer attention span when your brain is at its best, he says. 

He recommends moderate exercise, like walking, five days a week for 30 minutes.

Aside from walking, Dr. Gary Small, chair of psychiatry at Hackensack Meridian Health, says strength training helps combat age-related muscle loss and can lead to a longer life span. Additionally, balance exercises can help prevent slips and falls—the leading cause of injuries in adults ages 65 and older.

Jasmine Marcus, a physical therapist at Cayuga Medical Center at Ithaca, where she works with patients of all ages and physical activity levels, recommends tiptoeing into exercise if you’re new to it. She suggests starting with some kind of group fitness class like Zumba—anything that elevates your heart rate. It helps, too, if you have a partner to hold you accountable, she says.

2. Strive for mental fitness

Small also recommends doing activities that keep the brain in shape. One study showed the simple act of reading articles online and searching topics on Google offered valuable mental stimulation. Doing crossword puzzles, reading books, playing games, practicing hobbies, and daydreaming all contribute to mental sharpness.

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Stress management is also a critical part of maintaining mental fitness. Just 10 minutes of meditation a day can improve mood and cognitive agility, says Small, rewiring the brain and strengthening neural circuits. 

“You don’t have to go to a retreat in Nepal or India to meditate, but you can learn the skills,” he says.

3. Stay social

The U.S. surgeon general issued an advisory last year warning of the nation’s loneliness epidemic, which negatively impacts health. One study equated lack of social connection to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. Other studies show social connection reduces the risk of premature death. It’s clear that social and emotional fitness is key to aging well. 

Skuler, whose company makes A.I.-powered social companions for aging adults aimed at keeping them active and engaged, says major life changes, such as the death of a spouse, often trigger loneliness. 

“That is by far a watershed moment,” he says. Suddenly no one is asking how you slept or what you have planned for the day. A similar problem happens with asynchronous aging, where one spouse has a decline with dementia, for example. Other events such as retiring or sending the kids off to college might have similar impacts on social well-being, Skuler says. 

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ElliQ, the robot companions Skuler’s company makes, is one way to help aging adults stay connected, but he encourages all people to maintain friendships and relationships with family members. Volunteering, he says, can also add purpose and connection to your life. 

4. Develop good sleep hygiene

There’s a myth that seniors need less sleep as they age, but Jamie Zeitzer, Ph.D., advisor and scientific reviewer at Rise Science, says the reality is sleep becomes more difficult with age. The result is that many seniors find themselves going to bed later and rising earlier. 

“Humans are programmed to stay awake 16 [hours] and sleep eight hours,” he says. “An older person’s ability to do that diminishes, so they have to work a little harder at it.”

The causes for poor sleep can be both social and physical. We become more sensitive to sounds and temperatures as we age, says Zeitzer. So the garbage truck that never woke you on its weekly route might now rouse you at 6 a.m., he says. Similarly, a bedroom that’s too hot or cold might make it difficult to sleep. 

As we age we also become more sensitive to caffeine. So if you used to be able to drink a cup of coffee in the evening, you could find you now have trouble falling asleep hours later. 

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There’s also a major shift that happens once we retire, when the social constraints around sleep are suddenly lifted. Seniors who don’t have social obligations early in the morning might find they’re less inclined to sleep at typical hours. A nap during the day, for example, may “cannibalize their sleep at night,” Zeitzer says. 

Older adults might find that sleeping too little or having a fragmented night of sleep can lead to acute problems with cognition the following day, Zeitzer adds. Poor sleep over the long term is linked to health conditions including depression, Alzheimer’s disease, and cancer.

A good routine can solve some sleep problems. To start, avoid caffeine later in the day. And be mindful that you adjust the temperature in your sleep environment to encourage rest.

And he recommends finding a way to wind down before bed. While some experts warn against the use of electronics before you grab some shut-eye, Zeitzer says watching a TV show can be helpful if it means you feel more relaxed and ready for bed afterward.

“It’s always good to aspire to closing your eyes and falling asleep, but other people need more kinds of wind-down routines,” he says.

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Fitness

3 great fitness hacks for a quick and effective workout | Mint

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3 great fitness hacks for a quick and effective workout | Mint

It has been a long month with five Saturdays and an extended weekend bang in the middle of it all. Workouts may have taken a back seat with plans to spend time with family and friends, and to go out. Every minute of a vacation counts as much as every minute in the gym and this is where the best gym hacks come into play.

Over the course of this longer-than-usual month, I have used three tricks to make my workouts better to squeeze something meaningful out of every rep. The muscle groups involved are the entire lower body, the biceps, and the back and shoulders, focusing more on growth and strength over cardio.

The leg-press formula that works everything: Having had the access to a leg press machine for an extended period has made me realise how its usefulness extends far beyond that of the conventional press. Just by changing the placement of your feet, you could do an entire workout comprising different exercises, using just one machine.

Consider the leg press platform as a tool of change and curiosity. Try these four foot placements with a comfortable load and see how the lower body reacts. The first would be to target the glutes by placing the heels central but the toes touching the upper lips of the pressing platform. Without getting off the machine, change the placement to the heels touching the bottom edge of the platform to target the quads.

The third exercise would be to angle the toes away like you would in a sumo squat with a slightly wider stance, and in the centre of the platform, to target the adductors. The last one, and the most exciting, would be to place the toes on the bottom edge with the heel—unsupported—to push the weight away using only your calves. These are called leg press calf raises as shown in the video below.

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I tend to do five reps on each of these placements for three sets. In just a few minutes, you have now worked your entire lower body with an option to scale and overload according to your strength.

Run-the-rack biceps workout: In case you haven’t heard the term run-the-rack, it basically means going through as many weights of dumbbells as you can with a single exercise. You could choose to go from light-to-heavy or vice versa, depending on the exercise and your level of fitness. In the case of bicep curls, my preference is to always do sitting one-armed concentration curls with a suggestion on the positioning of the arm.

“The way to alter the exercise to get this to work in your favor is to reposition the arm directly in your groin. You can see how the forearm now becomes much more perpendicular to the force of gravity and you can feel the impact this has on your biceps on every rep,” says Athlean-X founder Jeff Cavaliere in a video titled Concentration Curls Aren’t Working for You (here’s why).

You could choose any other biceps exercise as well. Once the choice is made, decide the formula—doing a particular number of reps (I do ten) works better when working your way up the weights. Doing as many reps as possible on each weight works better when you are working your way down the weights. The former works better for me because biceps have always been a weakness and having a set goal makes sure that form is not sacrificed.

My last workout was done with dumbbells of 3kg, 5kg, 7.5kg and 10kg, with ten reps on each arm with no breaks. Then switch arms, and repeat. One set is enough, but if you are feeling adventurous, feel free to do another one.

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Derick Ansah’s shoulders-and-back dumbbell workout: The Ghanaian fitness trainer’s 1.8 million followers on Instagram are never disappointed and that is because of his smart routines. And out of many of those, my favourite is his shoulders-and-back dumbbell workout. It consists of four exercises which you can do for a set amount of time or reps, with the caveat that they need to be done one after the other.

I used just 5kg dumbbells and was absolutely torched. The workout starts with circular raises, and ends with a rowing motion, so make sure to start with very light weights before you work your way up. His third exercise is especially brutal, as it forces you to do a sitting high pull and a front chest press. This is a follow along, so enjoy the burn.

Pulasta Dhar is a football commentator, podcaster and writer.

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HYROX, Zepp Health partner on wearable technology for athletes

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HYROX, Zepp Health partner on wearable technology for athletes

Hyrox, a global fitness race for competitors, announced it is partnering with Zepp Health, a health technology company that manufactures smart wearable products, including its flagship wearable brand, Amazfit. 

Under the two-year partnership Amazfit will act as the official wearable and timekeeping partner of HYROX. The aim is to assist athletes’ training regime and supply them with a user-friendly wearable device that provides health and fitness monitoring capabilities 24/7.

Hyrox is a global fitness race that links running and functional exercises designed to challenge strength, endurance and cardiovascular fitness. It consists of eight rounds, each with a 1 km run followed by a different functional exercise.

Amazfit’s partnership with HYROX events will continue until 2026 with live experiences and dedicated consumer shops. 

Additionally, the company will support athletes by outfitting them with Amazfit Cheetah Pro, Falcon, T-Rex Ultra, Balance and Active smartwatches and its Helio Ring. 

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Data from Zepp Health’s Helio Ring and Amazfit smartwatches is integrated within the Zepp App giving athletes a holistic view of their health metrics during workouts and recovery periods.

Amazfit is scheduled to unveil software updates to its smartwatches soon, including a HYROX race mode and integration into HYROX365, enabling HYROX Training Clubs and Coaches with smart digital solutions. 

“I am delighted to announce our partnership with HYROX, aligning two forces dedicated to pushing the boundaries of athletic achievement and unlocking human potential,”  Wayne Huang, chief executive officer of Zepp Health, said in a statement.  

“Through our smartwatches and fitness wearables, we aim to empower athletes to reach their peak performance and transform their everyday lives.”

THE LARGER TREND

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In July, Zepp Health released the newest version of its smartwatch operating system, Zepp OS, which runs on OpenAI’s latest GPT model. Integrated with ChatGPT-4o, Zepp 

OS includes an upgraded Zepp Flow voice assistant, enabling users to control their devices via voice commands without using specific keywords or physical touch. 

In 2021, Zepp Health unveiled new product offerings, including its AI wearable chip for health devices, smartwatch operating system and blood pressure measurement feature on its smartwatch brand. 

The Zepp OS will not only be an operating system for its smartwatch but also the core of an open health management platform. The company also announced that it would open the framework of its “Mini Program” for developers to create new apps that leverage Zepp Health’s data and intelligence. 

 

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The HIMSS AI in Healthcare Forum is scheduled to take place September 5-6 in Boston. Learn more and register.

 

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