Taking a brisk walk after meals every day has been a long-standing habit of Lin, an 85-year-old nationally renowned traditional Chinese medicine practitioner.
Brisk walking can strengthen your body, but walking incorrectly can harm your body.
Dr. Liu Qiang from the Department of Orthopedics and Joints of Peking University People's Hospital shared with us the secret of walking fast to live longer.
Dr. Liu Qiang said that from the perspective of an orthopedic surgeon, walking has a very miraculous effect on the health of the elderly.. If middle-aged and elderly people can walk and walk more than 7,500 steps a day, they can significantly reduce the risk of all-cause death.
There are two major degenerative diseases in middle-aged and elderly people. One is sarcopenia , where the muscles become less and less and the strength is weakened. The other one is osteoporosis .
Daily outdoor walking can prevent and treat these two diseases very well.
However, starting from the age of 40, our knee joints begin to decline. More than half of people aged 55 to 60 years old may experience knee joint pain, and people over 60 years old, this The incidence of this situation is even higher.
Even if your knees don’t hurt, it doesn’t mean there’s nothing wrong with them.
Today Dr. Liu Qiang taught us a method of self-testing leg strength , which you can follow at home. If a problem is found during the self-test, diagnosis and treatment should be made promptly.
Stand on the ground, with your feet and knees together and your toes facing forward. Find an X-ray film (if you don't have an X-ray film, you can use a thin book instead) and sandwich it between your knees.
If your legs are strong, you can clamp the film tightly and cannot pull it with your hands.
People with poor leg strength cannot hold the film and pull it out with a gentle tug.
After testing, there is no problem with Mr. Lin's leg muscles. People who walk briskly all year round have healthier knees and stronger legs.
Four tips for walking thousands of steps a day without hurting your knees
Many uncles and aunts have knee pain after walking for a long time. What is Mr. Lin’s secret of walking fast for more than ten years without hurting his knees?
Dr. Liu Qiang said that first of all, Mr. Lin did not complete the 10,000 steps in one go, but divided it into several steps in the morning, noon and evening. This way, he could avoid excessive burden on the knee joint in a short period of time.
Secondly, Mr. Lin's walking posture is very standard and causes minimal damage to the knee joints.
So, how can we walk thousands of steps every day without hurting our knees? What is the correct posture and method of walking? Dr. Liu Qiang summarized four tips for us.
① Correct the horoscope of
Keep your feet apart, hip-width apart, toes facing forward, not splayed. Many people have splayed legs when walking, which puts bad stress on the knee joints. Therefore, the first way to protect the knee joints of is to correct the external horoscope.
② Bright soles
When we take the first step forward, we must touch the ground with heels first and show the soles of our shoes. This action will cause the quadriceps to contract , putting the knee joint in the most stable and safe state.
③ Take a big step
throw off your arms and take a big step forward . This action requires the use of leg strength.
Dr. Liu Qiang said that once the bones and joints are worn out, they cannot recover, and muscle fatigue can be recovered quickly after rest, so we need to transfer the weight, strength and pressure of the legs from the knee joints to the muscles .
④ The back foot pushes on the ground
When we walk, the back foot pushes on the ground , which can generate a forward force . This force is generated by the muscles of the calf, and can also help reduce the burden on the knee joint.
By using these four tips and using our muscles, we can walk thousands of steps every day without hurting our knees.
3 Knee pain, small insoles can help
Even people whose knee joint cartilage has been worn can still exercise, but they need a little helper - orthopedic insoles .
This insole is designed according to the shape of the second half of the human foot. One side is higher and the other is lower, which can provide support .
You can find a pair of shoes that you have worn for more than half a year and observe the wear and tear on the heel of the sole..
Under normal circumstances, the wear of the left and right shoes should be even and symmetrical.
If you find that shoes are worn unevenly , it is usually because there is a deviation in the position where the foot lands, some outward and some inward. Over time, the shoes will always wear in the same position.
At this time, we can use this insole. pads the heel on the side with more serious wear , which is equivalent to straightening the foot . In this way, the crooked force is corrected.
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