If you take up exercise later in life, as a treatment for joint or hip pain, you should expect a small temporary increase in pain. But if you proceed sensibly, you will be rewarded with pain relief similar to that of a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, such as ibuprofen, and twice that of a non-prescription painkiller, such as paracetamol. In fact, the pain relief from taking up exercise is large enough that many people may find they can delay their surgery. From personal experience working with patients who suffer from joint pain have fear that exercise and strengtheing may harm these joints.
In the last 20 years of research has found that exercise is good for pain relief and recommended strongly for people who have joint pain. Most people experience a 10% increase when they start to exercise, some experience more, some less. This is not a warning sign but the body signalling that you are doing something you are not used to. Our bodies, including bone, muscle and cartilage are great at adapting and their quality improves when we exercise.
In a Danish study carried out by Skou and Roos (2017) on 10,000 people with knee and hip osteoarthritis, they found that people who exercised twice a week for six weeks experienced 25% pain relief on average. Earlier research shows that people who exercise in groups supervised by a Physiotherapist, experience greater pain relief than those who carry out exercises unsupervised at home. To get the most benefit from exercise, you need to feel short of breath, break out a little sweat, and progressively increase load of exercise as you begin to get stronger.
When you exercise take notice of the level of pain you feel after you completed the exercises, the pain level should be at a level that is tolerable and you shouldnt experience any increasein pain from day to day. Pain in the joint should be assessed after exercise on a 0-10 scale. On this scale 2 is considered safe, 2 to 5 is acceptable and 5-10 should be avoided as you may be loading the join too much. These rules are also applied to people who have bone-on-bone arthritis and is deemed safe. Good Luck!
References
Skou. ST, Roos. EM. 2017. Good Life with osteoArthritis in Denmark (GLA:D™): evidence-based education and supervised neuromuscular exercise delivered by certified physiotherapists nationwide.
