Staying active is a huge part of maintaining your health. This allows your body to burn calories and keep you from gaining weight. It also helps in staving off certain diseases and illnesses.

On top of that, exercising can help your mental health as well. It is a good outlet for a lot of people to release some steam which is always important. Stress can eat away a person from the inside and exercising can help avoid that from happening.

But what happens if you get injured and damage a joint or two? Does that mean you can’t exercise anymore?

The answer is no, you do not have to give up staying active. There are several low impact weight-bearing exercises you can do so you can still sweat it out.

What are Low Impact Weight-Bearing Exercises?

You don’t use other means to put pressure on your body in order to work out your muscles, nature already provided the perfect weight; gravity.

Essentially, a weight-bearing exercise is an activity that goes against gravity. A simple example is walking. When you take a step forward, you actually fight gravity in order to stay on two feet. This is already an exercise.

The low impact side of things means that you will be doing weight-bearing exercises that are easy on your joints, they do not tax your body too much so it doesn’t aggravate your condition.

Are Low Impact Exercises Effective?

This is a common question especially from people who are used to doing high-intensity training. The easy answer is that yes, they are still effective, may not be as effective as before, but it is a lot better than doing nothing at all.

For example, if you are used to running or jogging every morning before and now, because of a knee injury, you need to do low impact weight-bearing exercises, the best one to do is walking. It is less taxing on the knees but you are still able to get some gains without harming your knees further.

A low impact exercise may not get you to pro-levels, but it does help you maintain your health without doing any more damage to your body.

Examples of Low Impact Weight-Bearing Exercises

Aside from walking, there are other low impact workouts that you can do.

Yoga

One of the best low impact exercises is yoga. This is weight-bearing as you go against gravity in order to hold certain positions for a set duration. But, it is gentle on your joints.

This is actually considered a moderate-intensity exercise. This means that you get a lot of benefits or gains doing this. It is even just as good as high-impact exercises when it comes to fighting heart-related diseases.

Just make sure to choose appropriate yoga exercises for your condition. Avoid ones that can impact your injury or cause you any pain. You can also seek the help of experts in order to create the right routine specifically for you.

Climbing Up the Stairs

Another great way to get your heart rate up and break a good sweat is to go up the stairs. This is especially good if you have access to stairs in your home.

Or maybe you live or work in a building just a few floors up. You can now incorporate taking the stairs every day which gives you a good workout while relatively going about your day.

In line with this, you can use stair climbers in the gym or buy one for your home. These are great as you can set your tablet, phone, or computer in front of you and get a workout while binge-watching your favorite series.

Elliptical Trainer

Elliptical trainers are great for low impact weight-bearing exercises because these stationary machines are built exactly for that purpose. They allow you to do a whole-body workout while being easy on your joints.

Most if not all modern gyms are equipped with elliptical trainers so you don’t really have to get one. But, it is a good investment if you have the money and space at home.

Swimming

If you have access to a swimming pool, then this is great for low impact weight-bearing exercises. You can simply walk around the pool which is a good exercise because of the resistance from the water. At the same time, this is easy on your joints as well.

Obviously, you can also do some actual swimming which is a great exercise. Just do not overdo it of course.

Hiking

Most of the low impact weight-bearing exercises mentioned already are for indoors. If you are the type who loves nature or get some fresh air as you exercise, then hiking is a definite choice for you.

You can research hiking trails near your area and most of them would have information on how difficult they are. It would be good to choose one that is a bit easy so that it does not bother your joints too much, especially if you have knee problems.

Choosing one of these low impact workouts doesn’t mean you have to do just that. You can mix and match these together or even add other low impact weight-bearing exercises.