walking is a very common exercise
recommendation given by Healthcare
professionals to people suffering from
knee arthritis problems and for some
people it helps during the arthritis
situation but for others it actually
makes her knee arthritis worse in this
video I'll give you eight reasons why
walking actually helps knee arthritis
and hurts knee arthritis the first four
reasons are going to be how walking
helps and the second four reasons are
going to be how walking hurts knee
arthritis reason number one walking can
help you lose weight if you've got a lot
of weight to lose and you're looking to
burn some extra calories walking is a
fantastic way to up your calorie burning
so that you can shut off some pounds it
could reduce the pressure going through
your knee joints so that you might help
your knee arthritis situation now
walking is considered a low impact
activity at least relative to things
like walking and anything that involves
jumping but there's other lower impact
activities out there like elliptical and
bicycling and keep in mind that not
everyone who has knee arthritis problems
is actually even overweight so you may
not choose to pursue walking just for
the weight loss reason you may pursue it
for other reasons which takes me to
reason number two walking can help you
gain some strength if you haven't really
been an active person and walking has
never been something that you've gone to
go do for exercise in your normal level
of activity does not meet what walking
requires then inevitably you're going to
get stronger by taking up a walking
program your muscles are going to adapt
to the activity that you put them
through so if you start to go walk for a
mile two miles for a few kilometers then
you are going to get stronger in your
muscles depending on the balance of
strength around your hips and knees this
might be very beneficial for your knee
arthritis reason number three is that
walking can actually help cartilage
Health cartilage is found on the ends of
the bones and in your knee joints here's
the knee joints the entire edge of this
thigh bone right here is covered in
cartilage and this is the kneecap on the
back of the kneecap there's also
cartilage and in the bottom part of the
knee joint the top of this bone right
here there's also cartilage there's
special cartilage there called the
meniscus as well all the cartilage
surfaces can actually be improved in
their overall health with the right
amount of walking the reason for this is
because cartilage is designed to take
pressures that's what it's built for
that's what it's supposed to do so if
you load it with appropriate pressures
over the right amount of time cartilage
can actually get healthier it can get
stronger more dense and better able to
take on even more walking just like how
muscles respond if you exercise your
muscles the right way the right amount
and not overdo it or under do it muscles
get stronger and healthier so that they
can take on the next round of exercise
with greater ease keep in mind that
muscles respond to these kinds of forces
like from exercise way faster than
cartilage getting cartilage in a knee
joint healthy is a much slower process
than getting more strength around your
knee getting the cartilage in your knee
joint healthier is a much slower process
than getting the muscles around your
knee joint stronger this is especially
helpful if you're in the earlier stages
of knee arthritis and you haven't had a
lot of severe trauma to your cartilage
and your knee joint if your knee
osteoarthritis is extremely severe and
you've had massive losses in motion like
you can't bend or straighten out your
knee then there's a good chance that
your cartilage might be damaged so much
that walking may not be beneficial to
you at that point in order to get your
cartilage Health stronger but there's
probably other exercises that you can do
to improve your cartilage health and in
the remaining cartilage that will adapt
based on your severity of knee arthritis
reason number four is walking can make
you feel good whenever you exercise you
release endorphins and if you're
outdoors and you're getting some
sunshine then you may also get exposure
to vitamin D which is associated with
feeling good if you can make your
walking intense enough for you to get a
good sweat you will sweat out toxins and
bad stuff in your body that also helps
you to improve your overall health so
those are your four reasons why walking
can be helpful if you have new arthritis
and before moving to the second half of
this video where I talk about the
reasons why walking is actually harmful
for any arthritis I'm going to tell you
the reason why I'm doing this video I
talk a lot about knee arthritis and
other knee problems on this channel and
I talk a lot about walking as well
because there's a lot of tweaks you can
make in your walking to really help it
make it make your knees better but it's
important for you to understand the
exact ins and outs of walking and I'm
going to get into that a bit more here
so be sure to pay attention because
there's a lot of intricacies or
complications as to why walking is going
to be helpful and harmful for you and in
other videos throughout this channel
I've talked about why walking is good in
some videos and why it's bad in some
videos and we've had some subscribers
some some viewers comments on our videos
saying they're confused about is walking
good or is it bad so my hope in making
this video is to clear this up for you
and to show you that you need to take
this situationally to understand your
specific situation your condition the
severity of your knee problem and then
apply what I'm talking to you about here
on this video and other videos that I
put out to your situation so that you
can determine if walking is going to be
helpful for you or harmful for you well
let's continue reason number five
walking can make Muscle imbalances worse
now let me just tell you what a muscle
imbalance is really quickly because this
is not talked about in typical
Healthcare settings if we're talking
about the knee joint a muscle imbalance
means that there's certain forces from
certain muscles causing too much
pressure through the knee joints and
that means the muscles are out of
balance in knee arthritis the most
common muscle imbalance is the quads
which are the muscles in the front of
your thigh right here these muscles
right here on your thigh
they're too strong they're too dominant
and you would think the hamstrings need
to be worked out to balance that out but
it's not the hamstrings it's actually
the glute muscles up in the hip if the
glute muscles can get stronger then it
can put the muscles in Balance around
the hip and the knee joint so that
there's less forces at the knee joints
now understanding that part if you have
knee arthritis then you probably have
this muscle imbalance and if you tend to
use your quads a lot if you go on a walk
if you've been on a walk recently or you
go try walking and you really get
yourself tired you walk to the point
where you feel like you're working your
muscles then take inventory think in
that moment what muscles am I using to
do this walk and if you have to save you
tell me that it's your quad muscles then
you're walking in a muscle imbalance and
if you pursue walking in other words you
you walk consistently you try to
increase the amount of time that you're
walking the a distance where you try to
walk faster if you try to make walking
harder for you in an effort to help your
knee problem your arthritis problem then
you're going to be feeding into the
muscle imbalance you're going to be
making the muscle imbalance that you
already have that took you to this point
where you have knee arthritis you're
going to be making it worse and this
doesn't mean that you should never go
walking it just means you need to fix
the muscle imbalance and then learn how
to walk appropriately using the right
muscles so that you can make walking a
healthy thing for you to be doing reason
number six is walking can cause pain in
other areas besides the knee related to
the muscle imbalance if those muscles
are over dominant on the front of the
thigh then it often sets up hip pain on
the same side or it can even be causing
pain on the other knee or the other hip
on your unaffected side or maybe you
have arthritis on both sides already if
you start a walking program you put
yourself on a consistent schedule where
you're going to be walking a certain
distance in an effort to help your knee
arthritis situation and your hips are
starts to bother you your other hip or
your other knee starts to bother you on
the other leg or your feet start to hurt
you in an uncomfortable way or your back
begins to become a problem too then
you've definitely got a muscle imbalance
and you've got to fix that before you
pursue walking reason number seven is
that you might over stress your knee
cartilage it is very possible for you to
overdo it with walking and really
aggravate the cartilage in your knee
joint now it could be that your muscles
are not out of balance you have the
proper strength around your hip and knee
but your cartilage is just not ready for
the amount of walking that you're
planning on doing and there's so many
other variables especially if you have
not been somebody who walks for exercise
you might need to consider how you're
walking because the way that you walk
right now with possible bad form could
be okay for the amount of walking that
you do within your home and going to on
to run errands and work things like that
but if you you now are going to walk
consistently for 10 20 30 minutes or
more it may be a bad thing for your knee
cartilage there's so many other
variables to consider besides the amount
of time that you spend on your feet
walking I'm talking about variables like
what surface you're walking on the rate
the speed that you're walking at which
muscles you're focused on using whether
or not you should be using an assistive
device like a cane a walker a walking
stick and of course the the distance
that you're walking those are all
variables and there's more than that
those are all variables to consider when
it comes to walking and not everybody
goes through that because it's not
something that Healthcare Providers
generally talk about they just say go
start walking and they just give a
random time 10 minutes 20 minutes 20
minutes whatever you can tolerate and
there isn't any specifics on how you
should do it where and when all these
variables that I talked about need to be
considered if you're running into
problems when it comes to walking for
knee arthritis and this leads me to
reason number eight is that it's
possible to set false expectations about
how a walking program is going to help
your knee arthritis many people expect
walking to just be magical for them for
them to just start a walking program go
walk a mile then the next week walk two
miles every day and the following week
add a mile and for it to just be a very
linear Improvement where every week gets
better and better and the knee arthritis
just magically melts away and you are
all of a sudden walking 10 miles a day
and your knees are golden like when you
were 20 years old again plus you hear
friends or family that actually did have
a good experience of walking they
actually benefited tremendously from it
and that might have been all they did or
at least all they shared with you that
they did to help their knee arthritis
situation and there's other factors too
like it's cheap to go walking you just
need a decent pair of shoes and a place
to go walk that's generally safe and
most people just treat it as a very
straightforward simple thing to do
assuming that you have proper muscle
balance the right strength and proper
form when walking when that has never
been addressed faster looked at and so
if you have this belief about it and you
go pursue a walking program and then you
run into pain from the Walking it's very
frustrating and people tend to go one of
two ways with this they either just quit
walking because it's painful to do or
they force their way through the pain
and keep walking because they they
believe that it's going to eventually
get better their doctor might be
encouraging them to do that or some
other Healthcare professional that
they're seeing might be encouraging them
to still walk because there's research
or scientific research showing that
walking is beneficial for knee
osteoarthritis and the research doesn't
go into all the details all the
variables of walking that I just
mentioned and the truth is what you need
to take away from this video to make
sure that walking can be a successful
thing for you if you have knee arthritis
is that there's a right time to walk if
you're very irritated in your knee joint
if you're running into pain after
walking a certain distance that's not
something that you should be pursuing
you should not be walking into pain
making it hurt you should not feel worse
afterwards you need to make sure that
walking is a good thing for your knee
joints and if you're very swollen and
irritated right now your stiffness is
just off the charts you shouldn't be
worrying about walking you need to be
pursuing other exercises and activities
before you can go take on walking as a
regular thing and walking isn't the only
exercise that's really more of a
cardiovascular exercise meaning it gets
your heart rate going makes you sweat it
makes your your breathing increase as
well but you also need strengthening and
you need to strengthen the right way so
that you don't feed a muscle imbalance
that and the strengthening in
combination with cardiovascular exercise
like walking the two of those factors
must be combined with even more factors
like possibly your diets and and there's
other things to look at supplements as
well all those things need to be
considered and combined in a treatment
plan for knee arthritis so they can
achieve the best outcome for the long
term and that's a more realistic
expectation of how how walking can help
your knee arthritis situation so don't
set yourself up with a false expectation
that walking alone is going to fix your
knee arthritis if you're looking for a
comprehensive program on addressing your
knee arthritis we've got a program
called the knee arthritis recovery
program we go in depth into exactly how
to walk how to know when you should stop
how to know when you should begin to
walk there's different phases to
consider as well where there's different
exercises depending on the phase that
you're in we go into all these details
and so much more it's a very
comprehensive online program it's called
the knee arthritis recovery program and
you can find the details about it in the
link in the description below I hope
this video was helpful for you if you
have questions please drop them as a
comment below if you want to update us
on how your knee arthritis is doing if
you've been trying out some of our
exercises or some of our approaches or
if you've bought one of our programs in
the past let us know how you're doing
let us know if it's helped you out and
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thanks so much for watching I'll see you
in the next video bye