Your Joint-Protection Plan

Photo: RealAge

Think protecting your joints requires treating them like superstars -- pampering them, guarding them, letting them soak for hours? While there's some truth to that, you do have to let joints do their job. And with that, you'll experience some wear and tear over time. The key is to find the middle ground between exercise and rehabilitation. Here's what the YOU Docs advise to help protect your joints from injury and expedite repair when wear and tear takes its toll.

Hit the weights (and the mat). Resistance training not only strengthens your muscles and bones and helps you burn fat but also helps your joints. It reduces the weight your ankles, knees, and hips carry and increases the protection and shock absorption that strong muscles surrounding your joints provide. Try this 18-move YOU2 Workout that stretches and strengthens in less than 20 minutes.

Flex more. You also need to increase the flexibility of your joint–muscle units, so you're better able to adapt to the awkward positions that life may put you in. Strength training does not increase flexibility, but yoga does. And it also builds strength, balance, and elasticity so that muscles can better absorb shock in a shorter range of motion.

Get cuffed. One of the most important things you can do to prevent a shoulder injury is strengthen and stretch the muscles of your rotator cuff to help give you a good range of motion around the joint. To test your own range, try this:

1. Stand with your arm out to your side and your upper arm parallel to the floor (like you're taking an oath on the witness stand).
2. Without moving your upper arm, rotate your shoulder forward and backward.
3. You should be able to get at least 180 degrees of rotation. If you can't, try this move to help give you some flexibility:
   • Lie on your side with your upper arm on the floor and your elbow bent at 90 degrees. With the opposite arm, push down on your hand and hold the stretch for 30 seconds.

Oil up. Turns out fish oil is good for joint "oil." Yes, the omega-3 fats found in fish like salmon and mahimahi and in walnuts, canola oil, flaxseeds, avocados, and DHA supplements help provide lubrication that your joints need to function effectively and fight inflammation. By keeping joints lubed, you experience less friction, less grinding, and less pain as you age.

Another bonus: Fish oil and fish protein have been shown to regenerate the membrane of the meniscus (a C-shaped piece of knee cartilage), which can help if you suffer a painful tear or have chronic meniscus discomfort. If you don't eat fish, try fish oil capsules -- about 2 grams a day equals 13 ounces of fish a week. Or you can take capsules of DHA, 400 milligrams (mg) for women and 600 mg for men. You can get DHA purified, from algae (also called a vegetarian or plant source). That's where fish get the oil from.

Add vitamins and minerals. Studies suggest that the following combo of nutrients has the potential to protect against damage to connective tissue. The more elastic connective tissue there is around a joint, the greater the range of motion in that joint.

• Vitamin D3 -- 1000 international units (IU) a day
• Vitamin C -- 500 mg twice a day; less if you're taking a statin
• Vitamin E -- 400 IU a day; less if you're taking a statin
• Calcium -- 600 mg twice a day
• Magnesium -- 400 mg a day