Is Walking Good for Hip Arthritis?

From verywellhealth.com

Hip arthritis results from the breakdown of cartilage within your hip joints, causing hip stiffness and pain that can increase with inactivity, standing, and walking. Although walking can be uncomfortable and difficult with hip arthritis, walking is also incredibly important for maintaining the mobility and strength of your hips. 

This article will review the benefits of walking, how to get up and moving when you have pain from hip arthritis, and the types of assistive devices you can use to help you walk.

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Walking Is Good for Arthritis

Walking is a beneficial form of exercise, including for those with arthritis. Walking is a gentle, low-impact exercise that can help ease joint pain and stiffness, improve strength and mobility, and boost energy and endurance.

Starting slowly and limiting the duration of your walks is important as your body needs time to adjust to increased physical activity. Too much activity too soon can overwork your joints and can lead to increased pain.

Walking for five to 10 minutes at a time is a good starting point, as you gradually increase the length of time that you walk as time goes on. 

Before starting any walking routine or exercise program, consult your healthcare provider to ensure you are healthy enough to increase your physical activity demands.

Contact your healthcare provider if you experience:

• Increased joint pain
• Joint redness, swelling, or warmth
• Persistent fatigue

Benefits vs. Risks

Benefits of walking include:

• Increased mobility 
• Increased strength
• Increased endurance
• Improved balance
• Improved cardiovascular health
• Maintenance of a healthy weight 

Potential risks of walking if performed too much or for too long without adequate risk include:

• Increased joint pain 
• Increased joint stiffness
• Muscle soreness
  

 How To Exercise When You Have Arthritis

Warm-Up Stretches for Arthritic Hips

Hip arthritis can cause your hip joints to become stiff and your muscles to become tight, which can have a noticeable impact on your hip range of motion and ability to move your legs. Warming up your hip joints through stretching and range of motion exercises can help decrease hip pain and stiffness to make walking more comfortable.

Stretches and range of motion exercises you can perform to warm up your hip joints include:

• Touching your toes 
• Marching in place
• Leg swings forward and backward
• Sideways leg swings
• Hip circles 
• Bodyweight squats
• Bodyweight lunges

Exercise Challenges With Hip Arthritis 

Hip arthritis can make weight-bearing activities—those that involve standing on your feet—more challenging due to increased pressure within your hip joints as they support your body weight. Because of this, many types of exercises can be uncomfortable, painful, and sometimes even harmful for your hips depending on the extent of your hip arthritis.

Hip Exercises to Avoid

High-impact activities like running and jumping can cause increased stress on your leg joints, especially arthritic joints, when surrounding muscles cannot adequately support and stabilize your joints. With hip arthritis, avoid these types of activities to reduce stress to your hip joints.

Other Types of Exercise to Ease Into

To take the pressure off of your hips, it is best to start with non-weight-bearing exercises to help strengthen your surrounding hip muscles. These exercises include leg-strengthening exercises that involve having you sit in a chair or lie down to ease pressure off of your hip joints. Over time, your muscles will increase in strength and will be able to better support your hip joints. 

Other types of low-impact exercises that are easy on your joints and can help improve your mobility, strength, and range of motion include:

• Walking
• Bicycling
• Water aerobics
• Yoga
• Pilates
• Tai chi
• Elliptical machine

Walking Devices and Support Tools for Hip Arthritis 

Depending on the severity of your hip arthritis, an assistive device like a walker or cane can help you get around. A walker or cane provides the extra support to maintain your balance by giving you something to hold onto.

This is particularly important as hip arthritis often leads to weakness in the surrounding glute muscles that provide stability to your hip and help you maintain your balance when you stand, walk, and change directions.

Using a walker or cane also helps to take some pressure off your hip joints by using your arms to support your body weight. This can make walking less painful.

Summary 

Having hip arthritis can make walking difficult and painful, but walking is important in maintaining your hip mobility and strength. Gentle stretching and strengthening exercises for your hips and using an assistive device like a walker or cane can help provide more support to your hips to make walking easier and more comfortable.

Whenever beginning a new walking program, check with your healthcare provider and start off slowly to prevent overworking your joints.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

• How far should you walk in a day if you have hip arthritis?

  Walking should be limited to a short distance or duration at first to allow your body to adjust to walking for an extended period of time. Start by walking for five to 10 minutes and gradually increase the length of time. You can increase the distance or time that you walk as long as you have no pain and can tolerate walking comfortably.

• Which medications work best for hip arthritis?

  Medications that can be used to help manage symptoms of hip arthritis include nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), other anti-inflammatory medications, and cortisone injections.
• What are hip arthritis triggers?

  Triggers for hip arthritis include overuse, high-impact activities, weight gain, and prolonged standing, sitting, or lying down.

 https://www.verywellhealth.com/is-walking-good-for-hip-arthritis-6386384