If you are someone who suffers from knee pain, you know how devastating it can be. You can go from feeling great and doing your workouts however you want, to staying on the sidelines entirely. What’s worse, much of knee pain is chronic. Once it happens, it may take weeks, if not months, before you finally start to feel better again.

The good news? There are steps you can take to prevent knee pain from occurring. By simply taking the best preventative measures, you may be able to avoid this problem entirely.

Let’s go over what you need to do …

1. Always hot. First, make sure you don’t skip those warm-ups – a warm-up prepares your muscles for vigorous action. The warm-up is critical to improving knee health because it is during the warm-up that you can get blood flowing through the knee and increase natural lubrication.

If you’ve ever tried cold exercise, you know how stiff and sore your knees can feel.

2. Consider knee pads. In addition to doing a good warm-up, you might also consider wearing knee pads. These are tight-fitting knee pads that wrap around the knee and are designed to keep it warm and lubricated as well. They can help reduce joint pain while also adding a bit of stability to the knee.

3. Strengthen your glutes or gluteal muscles. Strengthening the gluteal muscles is another essential task to prevent knee pain. Those who have weak gluteal muscles often find that their knees do not roll properly over the toes, which can be a major cause of knee pain.

Doing exercises like …

• seated hip adduction,
• raise your leg and
• shells

all can help prevent knee pain in the future. Don’t underestimate the power this can have. You may not even realize that you have weak glutes until you start doing these exercises.

4. Replace footwear regularly. Lastly, don’t forget to get new running shoes when you need them: this is another big mistake that many people make that can cause them to fall with one injury or another. If it’s not your knees, you may be starting to get leg cramps.

Good footwear is essential in almost any form of exercise and even more so for people with type 2 diabetes. Know your foot type, flat or wide, and buy shoes that fit you right away. You should never have to break in a pair of athletic shoes.

Keep these four points in mind. The sooner you can get started on them, the sooner you can keep those knees safe and healthy.