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Which Sports Can Lead To Arthritis
- chelsie462
- Aug 28
- 10 min read
This article is a transcribed, edited summary of a video Bob and Brad recorded in August 2024. For the original video, go to https://youtu.be/haMgfrP2mEc
Mike: So we're often asked by our patients, "What are some risk factors for developing arthritis?" And some of them even asked, Is my past history of playing sports causing my knee, hip, shoulder, whatever pain you may have?
Brad: It's a good question, actually. But arthritis is a very complicated or complex disease, if you want to call it that. Genetics certainly has an influence on it. We understand that, but it's more than just that. And then the activities that a person does can also have an influence. We'll get into that a little bit as well.
Mike: So there are some sports that actually carry a higher risk of developing arthritis as you age in comparison to others. So in this video, we're going to look at a couple studies saying what the science says about it, and we're also going to show you some exercises you can do if you're suffering, suffering, suffering from arthritic pain.
Brad: Yeah. Now I have to admit the studies are revealing. They show some information that surprised me a little bit. So it's interesting, and just follow us along, and we'll explain what we found.
Mike: The first study we're going to look at is called Athletics and Osteoarthritis. Now, in this study, they looked at athletes and older individuals who participated in vigorous sports activities and increased the risk of osteoarthritis. Now, these sports we're talking about are things that are high impact and also have torsional loading, meaning a lot of twisting, turning, diagonal cutting, different stuff. So some examples of this would be soccer, football, basketball, tennis, and baseball. I mean, football's worse because you hit each other, but you know, high-impact, full-on sports at top speeds.
Brad: Alright, Mike, I agree with all those, but I don't think anybody in our viewership plays football.
Mike: Maybe Aaron Rodgers, who knows if he watches us anyway.
Brad: But let's look at moderate exercise. How could that affect their joints? We're talking about like walking?
Mike: Walking, jogging, resistance training, functional exercise stuff. Now they have found that that does not increase your risk of osteoarthritis. It can actually improve the strength and mobility in the joints and muscles surrounding it. So we just want to differentiate that this study is looking at high-impact, full-speed sports, not your typical gym goer, weekend warrior person. Now, here are some other factors that can actually increase your risk of osteoarthritis that are not associated with the sports aspect of it.
Brad: Yeah, this is actually oftentimes the genetic factor that will really have an effect on it. The first one is joint alignment. For example, if a person is genu varum or genu valgus, in other words, bow-legged or knock-kneed, that can really affect the stress points on the knee joints.
Mike: Another thing is a history of joint injury or surgery in the past. So maybe a meniscal tear, playing sports, ACL, etc. Typically, those people can develop arthritis later in life.
Brad: The next thing is joint instability or hypermobile joints. In other words, the ligaments are lax; they don't keep the joint in place. Things like they call it hypermobility. Like I said, the common term is-
Mike: Double-jointed.
Brad: Double-jointed, yeah. There really are no double joints. But anyway, you know what I mean?
Mike: The next common cause is above-average body weight. Just having that much more weight compressing on each joint within your body can add up over the years.
Brad: Right, and general weakness if your muscles and whatnot aren't strong enough to maintain alignment in the joint, that can also irritate and accelerate arthritis. All right, the second study we're going to look at has to do with what, Mike?
Mike: Long-distance runners, and looking at their development, whether they were at high or lower risk of osteoarthritis. So it is called Aging, long-distance running, and the development of musculoskeletal disability. A controlled study. That is a really long title.
Brad: Yeah, yeah. Bottom line is, I think most people think people who long-distance run as they age are going to wear their joints out. Arthritis is gonna happen, and they're going to fall apart. Very interesting results did come from this.
Mike: Yeah, so the study actually compared 498 long-distance runners, ages 50 to 72 years old.
Brad: And 365 community control subjects. In other words, people whom you know live their lives at the average activity level.
Mike: So what they found in the study is that runners had less physical disability and maintained more functional capacity than their age-matched control subjects, meaning they compared runners to non-runners in the same demographic and found the runners were essentially moving better and in better shape.
Brad: And actually, the runners had fewer visits to the doctor. What is it? One third less?
Mike: One-third fewer visits to the doctor.
Brad: And most of those visits were as a result of an injury from running, maybe a muscle tear, muscle strain, whatever it may be.
Mike: Other issues like that. So, what they found when it comes to osteoarthritis, comparing the runners to the non-runners group, there was no significant difference in the amount of osteoarthritis developed between the runners and the non-runners.
Brad: Now I think everyone is not surprised about this fact is the people who were the runners had a better cardiovascular system and health than the non-active people. But the other part that was really interesting to me is the decreased rate of disability in general. In other words, the people who are actively running had fewer problems overall.
Mike: In their whole body, upper body, and lower body. Which is pretty fascinating.
Brad: Right, that's what I thought. I was happy to hear that. Because I like running, I want to keep running.
Mike: So basically, the study concluded that an aerobic fitness running plan structured in a proper way did not increase the risk of osteoarthritis and oftentimes actually helps the musculoskeletal system with aging. You get some bone density benefits, some muscular benefits, and some cardio benefits. Now we should mention that for the non-runners, these people are often running slower, with less impact, taking it easy, and not running super hard as often. So that's why distance running is so different compared to, say, playing football.
Brad: Right. Alright, now let's look outside of these studies and see how it relates to us ourselves. How can you improve your health with movement without running? Because a lot of people, most people just do not want to run, and it all boils down to movement and range of motion of the joints to keep them healthy. So we're going to go through some general basic exercises that are very effective for your hands and your wrists.
Mike: So movement is good because it actually produces synovial fluid in all joints of the body. We will start with the hand, but we have some other joints we're going to address as well.
Brad: Right, so let's get right into the claw.
Mike: We should. The claw exercise is first. So simply take your hands up and then make a claw. You're not making a full closed fist yet. You're simply making a claw. So if you have any hand or wrist arthritis, these are good for that. What's the next exercise, Brad?
Brad: Tabletop. That's an interesting one. It takes a little coordination where you just bend the fingers. So you're working the big knuckle joints right here. Okay, do that with both at the same time. There's a tabletop and it straightens up.
Mike: The next one is called finger abduction and abduction. Basically, you're just opening your fingers, spreading them apart, sideways, and bringing them back together again. Try to do 10 of them.
Brad: And then full extension. That means opening your hand to here. That's not full. We want to go back farther. You can use the other hand to add a little passive range. It'll stretch on that as well.
Brad: Now oftentimes in the hand, arthritis is felt in the small joints and the fingers and the knuckles, and if you have it, you know it. I feel it. This does feel a little uncomfortable, but the more I do it it loosens up and it feels better. Everyone typically knows or typically experiences up in the morning out of bed, oh, it's hard or do it hurts. And as you do these, it loosens it up, and then you do them throughout the day. Let's talk about some other exercises.
Mike: Okay, next, we're going to look at the knee joint itself. If you have some arthritis in there, sometimes just some movement can help. We're just going to simply extend or kick out straight and then flex back as far as you comfortably can. If you are limited in some capacity, you can certainly grab underneath your leg. Just do the range of motion and ability you have, and then come back down. Obviously, the more arthritis you have might take a little while to limber up, but the knee joint just simply straightens and bends.
Brad: Yeah, as far as straightening it, you can put it on the floor, scoot to the edge of your chair, and do a little straightening like this.
Brad: This also includes the hip, particularly if you're trying to flex the knee. The hip flexes at the same time. You're getting two joints at the same time, which is really nice to do. Alright, hip. Let's talk about the hip a little bit in more detail. Mike, in a seated position, you can simply, as I mentioned before, pull up like this maximum flexion and extension on the chair. You really have to turn sideways and go back. Mike is doing a good job standing. Talk about that a little more.
Mike: Now when it comes to standing, you can certainly hold onto something if you need to, flex it up. You can also mess with which range you're in. Notice here, flexion. I can go about there. If I go slightly up to the side, I can get a little higher up. Get that joint moving. When it comes to extension and standing, holding onto something works; kick straight back. Try not to bend forward. It's going to be a little more challenging and engage a little more muscle in a standing versus seated position.
Brad: Good. Next is hip abduction and adduction. In a seated position, you can simply keep your feet in one position, one spot, and go in. You're limited, obviously, by knees touching but out. You can go further. You get little hip muscles stretching as well as the joint moving.
Mike: In a standing position, simply kick your legs out to the side in a straight fashion like this, and hold onto something for support if needed. Try to control the motion. Good posture. Do not just sway and kick as high as you can.
Brad: Good. And then rotating the hip in the chair. It's kind of difficult to get a really good rotation, but you can sit like this and work this way. We're getting a little rotation or holding the knee still and swinging the foot back and forth. This is internal rotation. Typically, you won't go too far that way. This way you can actually pull here and up like you're going to put your sock on. A really good functional stretch as well.
Mike: Now if you're in a standing position to do this, act like you're squishing a ugly bug on the ground there and just put your feet back and forth rotating. Notice my heels are up. This helps with the rotational component. If you have pretty good mobility, you feel steady, you could certainly kind of do some hip circles. You get a full range of flexion, abduction, rotation, the hips just moving in all directions. You can go clockwise or counterclockwise with this.
Brad: There you go, so we got you some exercises for the hands, hips, and knees. If you want to have another video with some more exercises, what do we have?
Mike: You can check out the video, "What I Wish Everyone Knew About Arthritis."
Brda: All right, thank you, Mike. Enjoy the day.
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