Although it might seem like that niggling pain in your low back or creaky sensation in your knee popped up out of the blue, there’s a fair chance your everyday behaviors played a role. Certain movements can wear away at your muscles and joints even if you don’t realize it. “What happens is, you have a cumulative exposure [to stress] on the body, and then there’s the literal straw that breaks the camel’s back,” Rahul Shah, MD, orthopedic spine surgeon at Premier Orthopaedic Associates in New Jersey, tells SELF.
Read on to find the bad habits orthopedic surgeons want you to avoid—whether or not you’re currently in pain—and six steps to safeguard your joints for the long haul.
Side sleepers, beware: The arm-under-the-head position can put pressure on your rotator cuff and exacerbate any shoulder problems you may have, David J. Backstein, MD, orthopedic surgeon and medical director at the Hospital for Special Surgery at Naples Comprehensive Health, tells SELF. It’s essentially doing the same thing to the joint as if you had your arm extended overhead, he explains, which is what typically causes trouble for shoulder-pain sufferers.
What to do instead: You don’t have to give up side sleeping—after all, changing positions can mess with your sleep quality. Not to mention, side sleeping is often the best choice if you snore or have sleep apnea. But, try finding a pillow that cups your head and supports your neck in that side pose (so your arm doesn’t have to get involved) and then extend that bottom arm in front of your body instead of angling it upward.
Or, give back sleeping a go (if you don’t have any health conditions that make it harder to do so). Dr. Backstein points out that sleeping on your back, ideally with your knees slightly bent and propped up by a pillow, puts the least amount of pressure on all your various joints and may align your spine the best, too.
It’s human nature to dive headfirst into a hobby, Dr. Shah says. Perhaps you pick up pickleball and enthusiastically join a club with daily meetups. Or maybe you begin a new regimen at the gym and commit to multiple sessions a week after not having gone religiously in months. But what might seem like starting strong is a fast track to injury. You’re hammering the same muscles again and again without giving them time to grow, Dr. Backstein says. That can lead to overuse issues like tennis elbow, rotator cuff tendonitis, and shin splints, to name a few.
What to do instead: Ramp up slowly. A good rule is to avoid working the same muscles on back-to-back days as you’re getting started—so, leave at least a couple days between pickleball sessions or runs, for instance. And with any new activity, aim to increase your intensity (via difficulty or length) by 10% each week, Dr. Backstein says. He also encourages cross-training, or mixing up your activities to hit different parts of your body throughout the week and avoid overworking any one of them. For example, if jogging is your new thing, splice in some weight training; if it’s Pilates, work in some light cardio.
And while it’s always good practice to take at least one rest day every 7 to 10 days, it’s especially important to embrace downtime as you begin any new routine or sport. As for how often? It depends on your fitness, but extreme soreness, tiredness, and muscles that feel like spaghetti are signs to chill. Also keep in mind, “the body has an intrinsic ability to heal, but the time it takes to do so will go up as you age,” Andrew Carbone, MD, orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine physician at the Orlando Health Jewett Orthopedic Institute, tells SELF. So give yourself more grace with each passing year.
A sideways lean or twisted reach might seem like the most efficient way to pluck a fallen pen or kid’s toy from the floor. But according to Dr. Shah, the extra effort you might spare isn’t worth the potential pain. Bending and twisting from a standing or seated position creates “torque around your hips and risks you throwing your back into it,” he explains. You could wind up pulling a muscle or even herniating a disc (which is when the soft center of a rubbery cushion in your spine bulges or bursts, triggering nerve pain).
What to do instead: Be mindful of how you’re bending (and snapping), and avoid any spiraling motion. Instead, “face the object head-on, so you can stabilize your spine, and then use your legs to generate the power to get down and up,” Dr. Shah says. It might sound like a lot of hubbub if you’re just grabbing something small, but no matter the size, following good lifting mechanics is key to avoiding injury, he says.
Let us be the nagging voice in your head the next time you’re tempted to jump into a workout cold: Don’t do it. Not only will you miss out on all the benefits of warming up (like getting a better burn), but also, you’ll be flirting with potential pain. “Muscles and tendons are a material just like any other,” Dr. Backstein explains. “If they’re cold and you put sudden strenuous tension on them, you can get microscopic tears, and it’s those tears that cause the inflammation behind overuse injuries.” That doesn’t mean you can get away with a quickie calf or hamstring stretch, either. Static stretches (wherein you hold a pose) don’t get the blood flowing to your muscles and loosen up your joints for movement, Dr. Shah says.
What to do instead: Do a 5- to 10-minute warm-up before you start any physical activity. It should get your heart rate elevated and target the joints you’ll be flexing in the workout to follow, Dr. Shah says. For instance, that means focusing on the movement of your knees and hips if you’re going to be running or bending and loosening up your shoulders if you’ll be doing overhead moves.
The muscles running up the back of your body (a.k.a. your posterior chain) are out of sight, so there’s a good chance they might slip out of mind, too. “Everybody loves to work out the stuff that’s right in front of them, like the pecs, biceps, core, and quads,” Dr. Carbone points out. These are the muscles you can see grow in the mirror, after all. But when you create an imbalance—beefy front-side muscles and wimpy backside ones—you risk injury. The strong ones overcompensate for the weak, which messes with your stability and mobility. In particular, pumped-up quads and flimsy hamstrings are a recipe for hip and knee issues, like ACL tears, Dr. Carbone points out. Not to mention, a weak back can foster poor posture and the neck, shoulder, and back issues that come along with it.
What to do instead: Work out your backside muscles as much as you do your front ones. A simple way to do that is via “pulling” exercises (which involve tugging resistance toward your body or off the ground). These moves—like rows, pull-ups, and deadlifts—naturally recruit backside players like your rear delts, rhomboids, glutes, and hamstrings. So be sure to sprinkle them into your regimen alongside the more popular “pushing” moves like push-ups, squats, and presses. Dr. Carbone also highlights pulling-focused resistance band moves as an excellent way to fire up your lats. And for an all-in-one backside blitz, he points to the Superman exercise, which involves laying on your belly and extending your arms and legs upward: “It basically works everything that people don’t normally work.”
Desk jobs are public enemy No. 1 for any expert who deals with the musculoskeletal system, personal trainers and physical therapists included. They tend to trap you in a seated posture for prolonged periods, which “loads your lower back and hips in a manner that shortens the muscles and increases tension,” Dr. Shah says. That can lead to stiffness and pain, alongside misalignment that can trigger other muscles to overcompensate. It’s all the worse if you let your shoulders drift forward as you sit, which can overstretch the ligaments therein and put strain on your neck and back.
What to do instead: If you can swing a standing desk, that’s a fabulous option. Otherwise, take care to stack your head and shoulders in a line with your pelvis while sitting, and get up every hour or so, if possible, to pace around a bit, Dr. Shah says.
If your job doesn’t allow for such interruptions, plan to use what breaks you do have to your physical advantage. That could mean doing a brief power walk at lunch or filling little bouts of downtime with an isometric exercise that’s easy to do in an office or home setting. One of Dr. Shah’s favorites is a simple wall sit: “It’s low-footprint and has significant payoff.” He also suggests counteracting tech neck (the stiffness caused by peering down at a phone) by tapping into your neck muscles: Put your palm on your forehead and press against it for a few seconds, then do the same thing at the back of your head and on your right and left ears. That moves a bit of blood flow to the area and helps rectify a slouchy posture, too.
