Joint Injuries and Range of Motion

Which takes a greater toll on joints, aging or traumatic injury? My answer is, "Yes!" 

In point of fact, your range of motion (ROM) loss as you age generally stems from two causes: 1) cumulative injury and 2) disuse. From this the question arises, "Can you do anything to regain your ROM?"

As a matter of fact, I know that you can. You can find various ROM exercises on the internet. As for myself, I have found Scott Sonnon's Intu-Flow exercises quite helpful.

But you need to know a couple of secrets in expanding your ROM. First, if it's too painful to do an exercise in one quadrant, practice it in the opposite quadrant. For example, at present I cannot lift my hand above my head to make circles, so I let my arm hang and do low circles.

Second, do not push through a motion if the pain is above a 3 or 4 on a scale of 1-10. Simply, make the motion until you reach that point, then over time, shave off the a little more of the lost range.