https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVYFJ-OooHQ

The Sore Joint Solution - https://go.chasingstrength.com/sjs-simple-movements/

We’ve been talking lately about how important getting stronger and building muscle is for those of us 40 and older. (Let’s face it - it’s critically important regardless of your age.)

But actually, there’s one thing that’s MORE important.

Before we discuss it, let me just tell you that I had to learn this the hard way.

When I was younger, I was a knucklehead.

I prided myself on “working hard.”

Regardless of the long-term effects.

I pushed myself so hard in my lifting that I literally broke.

Multiple times.

And that was when I learned that “masking the pain” in the short term only created more pain in the long run.

And it’s the long run - the Long Game - that we should (in my humble opinion) should be focused on. So that’s why we need to focus on JOINT HEALTH first and foremost.

Even BEFORE strength and muscle.

Because if you have joints that produce active pain (and inflammation), then your body will shut down the neural drive to the muscles around those joints.

And that means that you won’t be able to use the muscles surrounding that joint at your normal capacity. And the danger in that is you end up “grinding” down that particular joint even more -

Accelerating the joint destruction process.

Worst case scenario, you end up tearing muscles attached across that joint -

Like a rotator cuff tear (which can take up to 18 months to recover from surgery)…

Or a partial / full joint replacement - which, depending on your surgeon and PT, can take equally as long. (My friend up the street is a 70-something former Marine pilot who had a knee replacement 2 years ago - he’s STILL dealing with issues resulting from that surgery.)

So, if you have chronic soreness, pain, and restricted range of motion in any of your joints, you have three choices: