Joint Week: the anatomy of a joint

It’s easy to hurt a joint – you just have to twist it the wrong way or fall hard, but joints also aren’t hurt as easily as you might think. Sound like a contradiction?

Look at it this way: Your hip, knee and feet joints, for example, bear a your weight and a lot of force. Every time you take a step, the force on your joints is much more than the actual weight. If you add to this the fact that you may be walking (or running) up or down stairs, your joint is bending, moving, and taking on the weight and force of your body. And, the joints are doing that again and again and again, every day.

Your arm and hand joints may not take on the weight and force of the lower body joints, but they twist and lift and do things like take your weight if you fall and use your arms to break your fall. Your joints in your back have to help support your upper body and be able to twist and move as needed, all in split seconds.

So, knowing this, I thought it might be interesting to show you how a joint is made up. This link will bring you to an image of a hinge joint, like the elbow or the knee.

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