Nicole has more than 33 years of experience as a physical therapist. For more than 25 years, she has helped older adults build and maintain strength through in-home physical therapy.
IN SHORT: Arthritis can cause joint pain and stiffness, but muscle weakness can make these symptoms worse. Strength training can help support your joints, improve mobility, and make everyday activities easier. Even if you have lived with arthritis for years, you can still build strength and work toward maintaining your independence.
Arthritis Doesn't Just Affect Your Joints
Many people believe arthritis pain comes only from damaged joints. The reality is that weak muscles can make arthritis symptoms and everyday movement worse.
Your muscles help support your joints and control how your body moves. When the muscles around your hips, knees, and ankles become weak, everyday activities can require more effort. Walking, climbing stairs, and standing from a chair may become harder and more uncomfortable.
Pain can create a frustrating cycle. When movement hurts, you may become less active. Less activity can lead to further muscle weakness, making movement even more difficult.
Breaking this cycle matters. Although strength training cannot reverse arthritis or repair damaged cartilage, strengthening the muscles around affected joints can help improve function and make daily activities more manageable.
Strong Muscles Help Decrease Arthritis Pain
One of the biggest reasons people with arthritis stop exercising is because they believe movement will make their pain worse.
Many have tried exercise programs that were too aggressive or weren't designed for their needs. After a painful experience, it's understandable to think that exercise simply isn't for them.
The opposite is often true.
The muscles surrounding your hips and knees help support your joints and absorb some of the forces involved in standing and walking. When those muscles are weak, your joints may have less muscular support.
As your leg muscles become stronger, they can better support your joints and help you move with greater control. Appropriate strengthening exercises may reduce pain and stiffness while improving your ability to perform everyday activities.
The goal isn't to ignore arthritis pain or push through an unsuitable exercise. It's to build the strength that helps you move more comfortably.
Exercise Shouldn't Hurt
The Right Exercises Can Build Strength Without Worsening Joint Pain
Simple adjustments in position, resistance, range of motion, or exercise selection can often make an exercise more comfortable and effective.
You may feel your muscles working, and mild muscle soreness can be normal as you become stronger. However, significant or persistent increases in joint pain should not be ignored. An exercise may need to be modified, or your symptoms may need to be assessed by a healthcare professional.
The right program takes your arthritis, current strength, mobility, and comfort into account. As you improve, exercises can be adjusted to continue challenging your muscles appropriately.
Many people are surprised to discover that they can become stronger and move more comfortably when exercise is tailored to their needs.
Strong Legs Help You Stay Independent
For many older adults, the biggest concern isn't simply arthritis pain. It's losing the ability to do everyday things independently.
Getting out of bed, standing from a chair, getting into a car, shopping, preparing meals, and walking through the house all depend on leg strength.
As strength declines, you may begin taking shorter steps, using your arms more to stand up, reaching for furniture for support, or avoiding activities that once felt easy.
For someone living with arthritis, leg strength is about more than exercise. It helps provide the strength needed to push up from a chair, take steps with greater control, and get in and out of a car. These everyday movements are often what determine how much help a person needs and how independently they can live.
Building and maintaining leg strength can help you work toward making these activities easier and preserving the independence that matters to you.
How Leg Strength Helps You Maintain Mobility
Muscle weakness can contribute to difficulty walking and maintaining stability, but the need for a cane, walker, or wheelchair depends on many factors, including arthritis severity, balance, other medical conditions, and overall mobility.
Strength training can help improve the muscle strength needed for standing and walking. Some people may also improve their ability to manage daily activities with less assistance.
A walking aid is sometimes the safest choice, and using one when needed is not a failure. The goal is to maintain as much safe, independent movement as possible.
Stronger Legs Can Help Reduce Fall Risk
Arthritis pain may change the way you walk. You might shorten your steps, move more cautiously, or avoid putting weight on a painful leg. When these changes occur alongside muscle weakness or balance difficulties, walking can become less stable.
Strength training can improve leg strength and physical function. When combined with appropriate balance exercises and other fall-prevention measures, it can help reduce the risk of falls.
This matters because a fall can lead to a fracture, hospitalization, and a long recovery. For an older adult, that recovery may affect mobility and independence for months.
Maintaining strength is one part of protecting your ability to move safely and continue participating in everyday life.
Learn more about how aging affects balance and the strategies that help prevent falls.
Walking Alone Isn't Strength Training
Walking is good for your heart and general health, but it may not provide enough resistance to build the leg strength needed for everyday activities. Strength training challenges your muscles to become stronger, helping support walking, balance, and independence.
Learn more in our article: Walking Doesn't Keep You Walking: Why Leg Strength Matters as We Age.
Consistency Is The Key To Maintaining Strength
One common misconception is that once you become stronger, you will stay strong.
Strength isn't permanent. It must be built and maintained.
Regular strength training helps you continue working toward your goals. Long periods of inactivity, illness, or reduced movement can lead to renewed weakness.
Many adults benefit from strength training at least twice a week, although the appropriate frequency and intensity depend on their health, abilities, and recovery needs.
Progress also takes time. Some people notice improvements in how they perform everyday activities within several weeks, while more substantial strength gains generally require consistent exercise over a longer period.
The important thing is to begin at an appropriate level, progress gradually, and make strength training a regular part of your routine.
For a closer look at what strength training involves, read What Is Strength Training for Older Adults? Understanding Functional Leg Strength.
What If Medicare Physical Therapy Has Ended?
Finishing physical therapy doesn't always mean an older adult has regained all the strength needed for everyday activities.
Medicare-covered physical therapy may end when the goals of a treatment episode have been met or when skilled therapy is no longer considered medically necessary. Some people still need a way to maintain their progress or continue working toward functional goals.
When appropriate, continued exercise can help maintain strength and mobility after therapy ends. The program should match the person's current abilities and be adjusted as needed.
For someone living with arthritis, ongoing strength training may be an important part of managing weakness and maintaining independence over time.
If your parent has finished therapy but is still struggling with everyday movement, read Medicare Physical Therapy Ended. What Happens Now?.
How Tandem Strength & Balance® Can Help
Arthritis doesn't have to mean giving up on building strength. Even when joint pain and stiffness make movement difficult, appropriately designed strength training can help older adults work toward stronger legs and easier everyday activities.
For more than 25 years, Tandem Strength & Balance® has provided private-pay, in-home physical therapy for older adults throughout the Twin Cities metro area. Our approach emphasizes progressive leg strengthening, with exercises tailored to each person's abilities and adjusted as strength improves.
Working one-on-one with the same physical therapist, clients can continue building strength at home, in the place where they live and carry out their daily activities.
Get Strong. Stay Strong.
Arthritis may affect your joints, but muscle weakness doesn't have to determine what you can do.
Building stronger legs can help you work toward standing more easily, walking with greater confidence, and maintaining the independence that matters to you.
If arthritis is making everyday activities more difficult, Tandem Strength & Balance can help you explore an individualized, in-home physical therapy program focused on building and maintaining leg strength.
Get Strong. Stay Strong. Aging With Strength And Independence.
Contact Tandem Strength & Balance® to learn more about our private-pay, in-home physical therapy services.
Research And Further Reading
Arthritis Foundation: Exercise and Strength Training With Arthritis