As a physical therapist, one of the most common concerns patients have is how to protect their joints over the long haul (especially as they are wrapping up treatment). Whether you’re dealing with chronic irritation or just want to stay active and pain-free, understanding the basic forces acting on your joints can go a long way in preventing injury and joint problems.
To protect your joints and avoid injuries, focus on keeping your joints within healthy ranges of motion, strengthening the surrounding muscles, and avoiding excessive stress that your tissues can’t handle. Maintaining balanced mobility and stability helps prevent long-term wear, pain, and damage like bone spurs.
If you prefer to watch, rather than read, see our full video on the topic here:
In this article, we’ll explore the fundamentals of joint protection—what your joints are made of, how they function, and what you can do to keep them healthy for the long haul.
Why joint protection matters
Protecting your joints is about more than just avoiding pain—though that’s important. It’s about preserving your ability to move, function, and stay active in the long term. Whether you’re lifting weights, chasing your kids, or just getting up from a chair, your joints are involved.
When they break down, it affects every aspect of your life. Learning how to avoid joint injuries early on is one of the smartest investments you can make in your future mobility and independence.
Our joints respond to the forces we put on them, and over time, those forces either build resilience or cause breakdown. Learning how to protect joints isn’t about bubble-wrapping your life—it’s about understanding how your body works and using that knowledge to move better.
Regular physical activity and strength training can improve joint health and help maintain a healthy weight—both of which reduce the risk of common joint injuries. It’s also important to listen to your body, especially when you’re feeling joint pain, and avoid movements that put extra stress on vulnerable areas.
The two main forces acting on your joints
Let’s start with the basics. The body deals with two broad categories of mechanical forces:
- Compressive forces
- Tensile (or tension) forces
Compressive forces come from the outside—think gravity, weight-bearing, or the pressure of a joint being squished together. Tensile forces act more like a stretch on the tissues, especially on tendons and ligaments. Both of these are necessary for joint health. Exercise, after all, is just controlled stress that makes you stronger. But when those forces exceed what your tissue can tolerate, you’re at risk for injury.
Understanding joint structure
Every joint in the body is a little different, but they all follow a similar blueprint:
- Bones meet bones
- Cartilage cushions the surfaces
- Ligaments hold the bones together
- Tendons connect muscles to bones
- A joint capsule encloses it all and produces lubrication
Let’s break down a few examples of common joints:
- Hip joint: A true ball-and-socket, built for stability and strength. The “ball” sits deeply in the “socket,” and both surfaces are coated with articular cartilage to absorb compressive forces and allow smooth motion. It’s one of the strongest joints and muscles combinations in the body. (See our full guide on how to protect the hip joint here)
- Knee joint: More like a modified hinge. Still has cartilage, but less stability because the “ball” (femur) sits on a shallow “socket” (tibia). That’s one reason why the knee is more vulnerable to joint injury.
- Spinal joints: These are planar, or flat, joints. They allow limited motion in multiple directions but rely heavily on supporting ligaments and muscles for stability.
When people talk about being “bone-on-bone,” they’re describing a total loss of cartilage. That’s a late-stage breakdown—but we want to keep you from ever getting there. In some cases, prolonged joint damage may even lead to joint replacement.
Joint mobility: not too little, not too much
Joint motion exists on a spectrum. We grade it from 0 to 6:
- 0 means the joint is fused—no movement at all
- 3 is ideal, healthy joint play
- 6 means the joint is extremely loose or unstable
We also use the term “joint play” to describe the tiny motions inside the joint that allow normal movement. Too little joint play, and the joint gets stiff. Too much, and you’re dealing with hypermobility (see our guide on improving flexibility here).
Most people we treat fall somewhere around a 3.5 or 4. That slight hypermobility might not seem like a big deal—until the body starts adapting in ways that cause pain or long-term damage.
The link between instability and joint damage
If a joint is moving too much, the ligaments and capsule get stretched. Over time, the body compensates by laying down extra bone. That’s how bone spurs (also called osteophytes) form. It’s the body’s attempt to stabilize a joint that’s been unstable for too long.
So, when someone comes in with back or shoulder pain and imaging shows bone spurs, that process has likely been going on for years (see our guide on protecting the shoulder, elbow, and wrist joints). Our goal is to help you act earlier—before your body feels the need to protect itself in ways that cause dysfunction.
So how do you protect your joints?
If you want to know how to avoid joint injuries, the key is to keep your tissues healthy and your movement patterns smart. That means:
- Respecting the normal range of motion
- Avoiding excessive tension or compression
- Strengthening the muscles surrounding the joint
- Staying active without overloading tissues
- Listening to early warning signs—pain, clicking, instability
- Keeping joints close to your body during load-bearing movements
- Engaging in physical activity that supports healthy joints
Working with a physical therapist can help you identify and correct movement patterns that put extra stress on your joints. In upcoming articles, we’ll go joint by joint and show you exactly what to look out for and how to keep each area strong, mobile, and pain-free.
