So You Have Arthritis—Now What? A Physical Therapist's Guide to Reducing Pain and Protecting Your Joints
Hearing that you have arthritis can feel overwhelming. Many people immediately think, "Does this mean I'll always have pain?" or "Do I need to stop doing the activities I love?" Fortunately, arthritis is not the end of an active life. While arthritis itself doesn't disappear, there are many ways to reduce pain, improve movement, and slow the progression of symptoms through healthy movement, strength, and physical therapy.
So Now What?
The Bad News: The structural changes of arthritis usually don't reverse, but that doesn't mean your pain or function can't improve. Many people with arthritis become significantly more active and comfortable through targeted exercise, movement retraining, and strength training.
The Good News: Physical Therapy is an excellent option for addressing the underlying conditions that drove the development of arthritis in the first place so that..
The progression of the arthritis is slowed or stopped
The irritation of the arthritic area is lessened or stopped
You learn lots of tools for preventing re-irritation of the arthritic area
You learn lots for tools managing the pain coming from an arthritic area if it ever gets re-irritated again. Arthritis isn't just something to live with—you can change how your body loads the joint. Learn how better movement can reduce stress on your joints →
In order to understand how and why physical therapy works in treating arthritis, it is important to understand how arthritis forms in the first place.
Wolff’s Law: Bone constantly adapts to the forces placed upon it. Healthy, well-distributed forces help maintain strong bones. But when joints experience years of uneven loading from inefficient movement patterns, the body adapts to those abnormal stresses as well. Over time, this contributes to the structural changes we recognize as osteoarthritis.
The Good Side: This helps build bone to heal breaks or fractures. This also helps to prevent or treat osteoporosis, where bone density is lost.
The Not-So-Good Side: Bad movement habits and bad posture changes how gravity loads and compresses a joint.
The protective covering of the joints (cartilage) wears down.
The bone becomes exposed, creating additional stress within the joint.
In response to those extra forces and stresses, bone grows and the joint surface becomes:
Thickened or narrowed
Rough or uneven
Which can then become irritated or inflamed.
Does arthritis always cause pain?
Research has shown that many people have arthritis visible on X-rays but experience little or no pain, while others have significant pain with only mild arthritic changes. This tells us that pain is influenced by more than imaging alone. Joint irritation, muscle weakness, movement patterns, inflammation, and nervous system sensitivity all contribute to how arthritis feels. Across the board for the last 15 years, there is very clear evidence in the research that supports that imaging findings do not correlate with weather or not someone has pain or develops pain.
How Physical Therapy Helps With Arthritis
Physical Therapy retrains your posture.
Physical therapy doesn't just strengthen muscles—it teaches your body to distribute forces more evenly through your joints so everyday activities become less stressful over time. Stability in the body starts with the spine and then extends out through the joints closest to it - the hips and the shoulders. Poor alignment in the spine, shoulders and hips changes the way gravity pushes down through the body and the stress on the joints to stay upright, move as well as the impact absorbed through the legs from the ground.
Physical Therapy reactivates and retrains your core.
Your core is actually a group of the deepest muscles that surround each joint, including your spine. When they work as a group or as a system, they maintain a healthy suspension and “lift” required to maintain your alignment against gravity. When there is poor activation of these deep core muscles it is like driving around in a car without a shock and suspension system. That contributes to the extra stress on your joints eventually leading to arthritis.
Physical therapy doesn't just strengthen muscles—it teaches your body to distribute forces more evenly through your joints so everyday activities become less stressful over time.
With their exam, the physical therapist will determine:
Areas that get too much stress
Areas that get too much impact
Where your posture alignment against gravity is off
Which muscles are too tight and overused
Which muscles are weak and need strength and coordination
Using the information found in their movement exam, your physical therapist will give you a customized program that can include stretches, strengthening and coordination exercises that will correct the underlying problems. If you keep doing your exercises consistently even after you have finished physical therapy your movement will likely stay healthy enough that you can continue to:
Keep doing the things you enjoy with less pain
Keep the arthritis from getting worse
Prevent the return of your pain
If your pain does return, often by going back to doing your exercises every day for 2 weeks, you are able to return to the point you were at after finishing physical therapy.
Ready to Move Better With Arthritis?
Having arthritis doesn't mean you should stop moving—it means how you move matters more than ever.
The Healthy Movement Rebootteaches the same movement principles I use in the clinic to help people improve posture, activate their deep stabilizing muscles, reduce unnecessary joint stress, and build confidence with everyday movement.
Whether you're newly diagnosed or have been living with arthritis for years, building a stronger movement foundation can help you stay active for the long term.
Ready to Build Strength Safely?
Once you've established a solid movement foundation, the Home Fitness Circuit helps you progressively build strength, endurance, and fitness without placing unnecessary stress on your joints.
Learn how to exercise with confidence using physical therapist-designed workouts that emphasize good movement quality before increasing intensity.
