Rebounding: Good Or Bad For Joints?

It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!

In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

So, no question/request too big or small 😎

❝I was looking at rebounder trampolines and wondered if you know if they are appropriate to soften the impact for someone with bad joints to try to regain strength and mobility? I have slightly brittle bones due to some medications, and am hoping to find a good impact exercise to do that will strengthen my bones without breaking them❞

What an exciting plan!

Let us first bring attention to our usual medical/legal disclaimer, and also take the opportunity to note that we are not doctors, let alone your doctors, and certainly cannot speak for your specific condition. Please do speak with your osteopath, physiotherapist, and/or any other relevant medical professionals, before undertaking a new exercise routine.

What we can do, at least, is speak in some general terms, in accordance with what science is available. Let’s tackle this piece by piece:

Exercising in the context of bad joints

For people with bad joints, there’s often something of a catch-22:

• Exercise, and inflame them
• Don’t exercise, and they “seize up”

Hence, the trick is—in few words—to exercise them very gently, while taking them through a full range of motion.

That’s “in few words”, though, so if you’d like it in more words than that, we’ll refer you to our entire main feature that we did on this a little while ago:

When Bad Joints Stop You From Exercising (5 Things To Change)

If the issue with your joints is arthritis, then you might want to consider the relevant portions of:

• Tips For Avoiding/Managing Osteoarthritis
• Tips For Avoiding/Managing Rheumatoid Arthritis

…as applicable, and if the issue is cartilage problems (which can occur in arthritis and often does, especially osteoarthritis, but is certainly not confined to arthritis), then:

How To Rebuild Your Cartilage ← this is really critical, as it covers exactly what you are looking for; an approach to strengthen weakened joints without further damaging them in the process.

As for whether rebounding will be good for that latter… In principle it certainly can be, for exactly the reason you asked about and we’ve talked about so far (it softens the impact while allowing you to do full range of motion).

However, there are more things to consider, and since there’s overlap, let’s talk about it along with…

Exercising in the context of osteoporosis

There are two ways of looking at this:

• Pros of trampoline rebounding: indeed 80% or more of the impact is absorbed, making it gentle (and yes, the fact that it is still impact work will improve bone density)
• Cons of trampoline rebounding: if you land incorrectly, you may become a heap of broken bones (for this reason, it may be best if your bones are in at least decent condition already before starting)

This is relevant also for the issue with bad joints, independent of osteoporosis or osteopenia (the pre-stage of osteoporosis); in principle it makes the exercise gentler, but it also increases the chance of injury if anything goes wrong.

In terms of what is generally recommended when it comes to osteoporosis and exercising, exercises should be “steady” and “straight”. In other words, no unexpected movements or sudden changes of direction.

For trampoline rebounding:

• Are there unexpected movements? Not if everything goes according to plan, but one misstep may mean disaster.
• Are there sudden changes of direction? Not in the sense described, again, if and only if everything goes as planned.

You may be thinking: well that is fair, but any sporting activity comes with a risk of something going wrong, and that’s true, but there’s definitely a scale from swimming pool yoga on the light end, to horseback polo on the dangerous end, for example.

So the real question becomes: which sporting activities/exercises have the least potential for disaster? And faced with that question, one must admit that a yoga mat carries fewer risks than a trampoline.

You can read more about this topic here: Osteoporosis & Exercises: Which To Do (And Which To Avoid)

Want to learn more?

For more about rebounding on trampolines specifically, and the health claims vs the health science for them (or not, as the case may be), check out:

Putting Mini-trampolines to the Test ← this is an interesting read, mostly concerned with assorted health metrics for healthy participants, rather than with specific conditions, though.

We also shared a video about this a while ago: Rebounding Into The Best Of Health ← this does mention the bone density thing, but not from a perspective of already having low bone density

And finally, if you’d like a kind of exercise that does a lot of the “softened impact resistance work” with less throwing your body around at high heights, then you might want to consider:

What is reformer Pilates? And is it worth the cost?

Take care!