Exercises for Mobility and Functional Strength

One of the keys to addressing knee pain and stiffness is to improve functional strength of the muscles that control knee extension and flexion.

This video demonstrates simple variations of the basic squat that are highly effective for improving functional strength of the knees.

The idea is to begin sitting on a stable surface, and to do the following squats:

1. Basic Squat on two feet. Read more

If you find that you can't take your hips through the exercises found in my exercise routine for hip pain and stiffness, you might need to spend time improving internal rotation of your hip joints.

When internal rotation is limited due to a hypertonic ligamentous capsule, the head of the femur doesn't have the necessary freedom to optimally swivel within the acetabular fossa of the pelvis, which limits all other ranges of motion of the hip, including flexion, extension, external rotation, abduction, adduction, and circumduction.

This progression of stretches to improve internal rotation of the hip joints is similar to the sleeper stretch that one can use to improve internal rotation and overall function of the shoulder joints. Read more

Where there is shoulder pain due to impingement, frozen shoulder, or subacromial bursitis, an often overlooked root cause is a tight shoulder capsule.

What is your shoulder capsule?

It's a series of ligaments that surround and stabilize your shoulder joint, which is where your upper arm bone (humerus) attaches to your shoulder blade (scapula). Read more

There's no question that it's healthy to engage in exercise and activities that create and maintain muscle mass. Beyond warding off osteoporosis, regular exercise that builds up and sustains muscle can significantly decrease risk of diabetes type 2, as skeletal muscle acts as a storage reservoir for excess sugar that makes its way into your bloodstream. Put another way, the more skeletal muscle mass you maintain, the greater capacity your body has to prevent diabetes and other types of cardiovascular disease. Read more