Joint Health And Athletics

In sports, at least in the modern age, training for the sport itself is a solid priority but we tend to forget about keeping the joints strong and focus more on the big muscles. Don't get me wrong, athletics are freaking awesome especially in areas like Baseball, Wrestling, Soccer and Basketball. Sure there's stretching, conditioning programs and solid use of weight training for specific sports that provide an athlete's ability to excel in his field. 

Keeping a solid level of conditioning and a healthy structure outperforms the ability to short bursts of energy and utilize muscles that aren't always trained the way they're meant to. Let me give you an example of two athletes from very different sports that challenged the norm to what the majority were doing in their day....

Rickey Henderson

The legendary outfielder mostly known to play for the Oakland Athletics wasn't just incredible at Stealing Bases, he was also awesome at the way he scored runs and the strategies used to make those runs happen. Beyond his stats, he was one of the few players of his generation to have a long and lasting career that lasted 25 years. From 1979-2003, he dominated areas of the game that we rarely or even will ever see again. 

He was a throwback to a time of the deadball era and the Negro Leagues where base stealing, bunting and scoring little by little was known more than knocking homeruns and driving in runs 3-4 at a time. His conditioning was uncommon among other players of his time, while many shifted towards the muscle building and juicing up during a period of hitting homeruns at a greater rate than before, he was one of the few that didn't get injured as often. 

He wasn't much of a lifter if at all and focused mainly on 4 distinctive exercises (or variations of ) such as push-ups, squats, sit-ups & sprints. Because of that foundation and understanding the aspects of realistic stretching and mobility work, he was extremely agile, fast, had reflexes that is even to this day would be considered superhuman. His joints in his prime were the pinnacle of what a healthy ball player should be and has an awesome physique that looked the part for his level of play. 

Herschel Walker

One of the most durable and highly conditioned athletes in the history of Football. He was doing things (and still does) back in the day that would consider him a freak of nature. Out of every maybe every 10 players in his time, he was in the small percentage of players that rarely got injured. His numbers in Push-ups & Sit-ups is just as legendary or even more so than his playing career. The man was a conditioning machine that puts him right up there if not at the top with guys like Walter Payton, Marcus Allen, Jerry Rice, Lawrence Taylor & Bo Jackson for athletic ability in the sport. 

Again, like Henderson, Walker knew and understood the aspects of Joint Health and Conditioning that gave him abilities that most athletes ever will achieve and knew that although great muscles can do great things for you, having joints and ligaments as strong as steel can help you stay in the game longer than most. Now, even though none of us will ever achieve what these guys did, we can however, take inspiration and ideas to make ourselves stronger and healthier than the average person.

The importance of having strong and healthy joints go beyond just doing exercises for mobility and little stretches, it'll make a huge differences in how strength from a long term and developing an injury-proof structure will play a role in our lives as we age. Most will never understand how in depth the significance and quality aspects of having healthy joints will do for them.

As we get older, having loads of muscle will become less important than the ability to just get up and move around without feeling pain and our bodies feeling less stiff. Yes we need muscles to move, but the joints and ligaments are the things that ties things together and give us that powerful shield to help us get around without hurting. We may not be as spry or springy as we were in our youth, but we can still learn to do things that will keep us out of a wheel chair or from not being able to get up and feel hopeless. We want to still do things that give us the quality of life we deserve, like playing with kids, play a sport, get up and down stairs, climb out of bed without pain, move gracefully and powerful at the same time. 

DVD Course On Joint Health By Lee Holden