Why exercise is vital

Exercise can help you improve your health and fitness without hurting your joints. With your current treatment program, exercise can:

• Strengthen the muscles around your joints
• Help you maintain bone strength
• Give you more energy to get through the day
• Make it easier to get a good night's sleep
• Help you control your weight
• Enhance your quality of life
• Improve your balance

Though you might think exercise will aggravate your joint pain and stiffness, that's not the case. Lack of exercise actually can make your joints even more painful and stiff.

That's because keeping your muscles and surrounding tissue strong is crucial to maintaining support for your bones. Not exercising weakens those supporting muscles, creating more stress on your joints.