How to Maintain Joint Health While Lifting Weights
We often hear that staying active is one of the best things you can do for your health. Lifting weights is a great way to build strength and improve overall fitness. But soon after you become more active and lift heavier weights, you realize your joints are in pain or stiff. Whether it's your knees, lower back, or shoulder, most active individuals over 30 suffer a drawback due to exercise, which is the very thing that's supposed to keep them healthy and mobile through old age. Wear and tear on your joints can result in pain, stiffness, and long-term damage. So what do you do? Stop lifting weights and focus on low-impact exercise. No, conditioning and strength training offer too many benefits that cannot be achieved without them. The solution is simple but not necessarily easy. You need a strategy to care for your joints for longevity and performance. Here’s how to maintain healthy joints while weight training.
Why Joint Health Matters
Your joints act as shock absorbers, allowing you to move efficiently. Poor joint health can lead to pain, stiffness, and even long-term damage, limiting your ability to train effectively. Healthy joints ensure better movement quality, injury prevention, and overall performance.
Key Strategies to Protect Your Joints
1. Check Your Joint Mobility
Mobility is the foundation of joint health. If your joints don’t move well, your muscles compensate, leading to inefficient movement and increased injury risk.
Joint Mobility Tests:
Ankle Dorsiflexion Test:
Stand facing a wall with one foot about 4 inches away.
Try to touch your knee to the wall without lifting your heel.
If you can’t reach the wall, you may have limited ankle dorsiflexion.
Quadruped T-Rotation Test:
Start in a quadruped position (on all fours) with your hands under your shoulders and knees under your hips.
Place one hand behind your head, keeping your elbow pointed out to the side.
Then, rotate up, opening your chest and pointing your elbow toward the ceiling.
Check how far you could go by recording yourself and repeat on the other side.
The goal is to have the same range of motion on both sides. if they're not the same, then you have an imbalance.
Apley's Scratch Test (Shoulder Mobility):
Reach one arm overhead and down your back while reaching the other arm behind and up your back.
Try to touch or overlap your hands. The closer your hands are together, the better.
repeat on the other side.
if the distance between hands is not the same, then you have an imbalance.
Hamstring Flexibility Assessment:
Lie on your back with your legs straight.
Keeping one leg on the ground, lift the other leg as high as possible while keeping it straight.
Aim to raise your leg to a 70-degree angle from the floor.
If you can reach this range without discomfort, your hamstring flexibility is adequate.
Repeat on the other side and compare. If one side is noticeably tighter or cannot reach the same height, you have an imbalance.
Address Your Mobility Restrictions
Now that you know where your mobility restrictions are, try using one of the following stretches to correct the limited area. Improving these movements is critical to reducing the stress on your joints and staying injury-free.
The solution to your restrictions
Ankle restriction: Box ankle stretch
T-Spine Restriction: Side lying T-rotation
Shoulder Restrictions: Strap tricep and internal rotation stretch
Hamstring Restriction: Strap hamstring stretch
Check the video for demonstrations of each stretch*
Assessing Joint Stability
Not only do you need sufficient mobility, you also need sufficient stability. This is the most overlooked area. Often, people assume that if they are strong, they are automatically stable, but that isn’t the case. Our bodies are so adaptable that they can cheat, not having stability, and still perform a movement relatively well from the look of it, but inside, you can wear out your joints. To avoid this, it is essential to assess your stability. It’s imperative that if you’re not working with a coach, you record yourself doing these assessments. Avoid relying on looking in a mirror only if possible.
Balance and reach assessment:
Balance on one leg.
reach your non-balancing leg forward and hold that position for 10 seconds without touching the ground.
Then reach it out directly to the side for 10 seconds
Then, behind you for 10 seconds
If you struggle to perform without the reaching leg touching the ground, you’re lacking stability.
Single leg squat:
Balance on one leg
imagine a chair behind you and try to sit down by pushing your hips back and down.
do your best to keep your knee traveling over/in line with your toes.
Push the ground away to stand back up.
Perform 3-5 repetitions to ensure you have the correct form.
if your knee doesn’t track your toes or hips rotate or tilt, you’re lacking stability
Deadbug assessment:
lay on your back with your hands under the arch of your back.
Bend your legs 90% and raise your legs off the floor so that your knees are over your hips
Keeping your spine in contact with your hands, brace your stomach, and reach one leg out.
Hold for 1 second and return your knee back in.
repeat on the other side and alternate for 10 reps
If you can’t keep your spine still down and your back begins to arch, stability is lacking.
Wall Angel Assessment:
Setup:
Stand with your back against a wall, feet about 6-12 inches away.
Ensure your lower back, upper back, and head are in contact with the wall.
Keep a neutral pelvis (avoid excessive arching of the lower back).
Bring your arms up to a goalpost (90/90) position, elbows bent at 90° with wrists, elbows, and shoulders touching the wall.
Execution:
Slide your arms up into an overhead position while maintaining wall contact with your wrists, elbows, and head.
Pause at the top for 3-5 seconds (“freeze” position).
Slowly lower back to the starting position in a controlled manner.
Perform 3-5 repetitions,
Stability is lacking if:
Elbows or hands can’t come in contact with the wall.
Lower back arches excessively (indicates poor core control).
Limited range of motion (arms don’t fully extend).
Excessive scapular elevation or shrugging.
2. Strengthen Stabilizing Muscles
If you have discovered that your joints are unstable based on the assessment, you’ll need to strengthen your stabilizers. Strong and stable muscles reduce joint stress by improving movement mechanics, absorbing impact, and stabilizing the joint. You may need to start practicing the stability assessment exercises first. Performing regularly should help improve their stability. It may also help to perform exercises that isolate your stabilizing muscles. This can help you develop awareness and strength around the unstable joint, which will help you learn how to stabilize while performing traditional exercises.
isolation exercises:
For knees, hips, and ankles: Single-leg exercises for balance and symmetry between legs. Glute bridges and hamstring curls for muscular balance. Mini band exercises are used to teach knee stability, and balance exercises are used to teach foot stability.
For shoulders: External rotations and band pull-apart for muscular balance, scapular push-ups for shoulder stability.
Shoulder stabilizer exercises*
Lower body stabilizer exercises*
3. Optimize Form and Lifting Technique
Improper technique places unnecessary strain on the joints. Executing movements with proper technique ensures joint longevity, whether sprinting, squatting, or performing any other exercise.
Solution:
Film yourself running and lifting to analyze form. I know a lot of you fear being that guy or that girl in the gym who carries a tripod. But coming from "that guy" in the gym, it's the best thing you can do to improve your form if you are not with a trainer (who prioritizes form). That's right, numero uno.
Work with a coach. An experienced coach can spot and help you correct dangerous habits before they become injury-inducing.
How to Implement Findings into Your Routine
This may feel like a lot of information to put into practice, so here are a few ways to implement this into your routine effectively.
1. Warm Up Before Working Out
A proper warm-up prepares your muscles, joints, and nervous system for the workout ahead, reducing injury risk and improving performance. The warm-up is the best time to add your mobility and activation exercises.
Solution:
General warm-up: 5 minutes of light cardio (jump rope, rowing, or jogging) to increase blood flow.
Dynamic stretching: Spiderman lunges, lateral lunges, and band over and backs to increase mobility.
Activation drills: Engage stabilizing muscles with mini-band exercises, glute bridges, and scapular push-ups.
Joint-specific mobility drills: If your mobility tests reveal limitations, spend extra time on targeted movements before training.
2. Post-Workout Stretch
After a workout, stretching helps improve flexibility, reduce muscle stiffness, and promote recovery.
Solution:
For knees: Seated hamstring stretch, standing quadriceps stretch
For hips: Butterfly stretch, kneeling hip flexor stretch
For ankles: Toe-elevated calf stretch, ankle dorsiflexion stretch
For shoulders: Child’s pose with arm extension, cross-body shoulder stretch
Hold each stretch for 20-30 seconds and breathe deeply to enhance relaxation and recovery.
Conclusion
Whether you're chasing PRs in the gym or just trying to stay strong and mobile as you age, your joints are the foundation on which everything else is built on. Neglect them, and eventually, you’ll pay the price—maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but it’s coming. The good news is you don’t have to stop lifting or settle for joint pain as part of the process. You just need a more thoughtful approach. Prioritize mobility, build stability, dial in your technique, and treat your warm-up like it actually matters (because it does). These strategies aren’t just about injury prevention—they’re about performance, longevity, and staying pain-free so you can keep doing what you love.
