Research
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Exercise is highly recommended for osteoarthritis patients, as it reduces pain, improves quality of life, and improves physical function, reversing previous guidelines that discouraged exercise.
If you have osteoarthritis, exercise is one of the best treatments. It reduces pain and helps you function better. Choose low-impact activities like swimming or cycling. If you feel pain during exercise, stop. If you have pain the next day, reduce the amount by half and build up slowly.
StrongSupportsHIGH confidence
Exercise reduces pain and improves quality of life and physical function in patients with osteoarthritis. Therefore, the treatment guidelines for osteoarthritis have been changed recently from not recommending exercise to highly recommending it.
Why this rating
Based on changed treatment guidelines reflecting strong evidence.
Source
An Overview of Current Physical Activity Recommendations in Primary Care
Yun Jun Yang · Korean Journal of Family Medicine · 2019
DOI 10.4082/kjfm.19.0038
narrative_reviewCited 193×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Adults should perform at least 150–300 minutes per week of moderate-intensity aerobic activity (or 75–150 minutes of vigorous-intensity) to achieve substantial health benefits.Strong
- Short bouts of exercise (less than 10 minutes) are effective and sufficient for health benefits, replacing the previous requirement for continuous 10-minute bouts.Good
- Dynamic resistance training is safe and effective for patients with hypertension, provided the load is not too heavy and breath-holding is avoided.Good
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