Arthritis ...

aoneill69

as this is the font of all knowledge thought i would try this one...i suffer from an arthritic back/neck which have greatly improved since my commited tri-training this year......now just confirmed in one of my fingers and and guess can only get worse...only 40 with plans to up the training regime over coming years...so just seeing who else has this and what do you do to help?...weight training, stretching (which i should do more for flexibility), general decent x-training plus some supplements such as flaxseed seem to be the usual route...decent diet, avoid niteshade veg somethings i really should do more of i know...any other tips?

Jack Hughes

I take it you mean osteoarthritis rather than rheumatoid arthritis. RA is very nasty.

Keep lean, keep the muscle strength up, keep moving... but don't drive yourself too hard, or demand too much of yourself.

The missus is also a suffering at too young an age - but she's not a triathlete, so can't really comment much more. She is still going through the inflammatory stage - where overnight a joint will swell up and get sore - after a while it settles down, then moves to another joint. Lots of pain and sleepless nights. It's a struggle. But if you give in, it gets a lot worse.

Oh - see does lots of pilates type stuff - core work with swiss ball, some light weights. She's not really into endurance sports though - so not much running except on the treadmill.

Zacnici

As Jack says Pilates; worked wonders for me. I was in agony with my shoulder, rubbing gels etc on it, a couple of months of Pilates and no pain. Occassional twinge but so much better.