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 the way you want, to letting yourself go completely. What’s worse, much of knee pain is chronic. Once it happens, it can 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. If you just take the best preventative measures, you might be able to bypass this problem entirely.

Let’s go over what you have to do…

1. Always Warm Up. First, make sure you don’t skip those warm-up exercises: A warm-up prepares your muscles for vigorous action. Warming up is critical to improving knee health because it’s during a warm up that you can get blood flowing throughout your knee and increase natural lubrication.

If you’ve ever tried working out in the cold, you know how stiff and sore your knees can feel.

2. Consider knee pads. In addition to getting a good warm up, you might also consider wearing knee pads. These are form-fitting knee pads that fit around the knee and are designed to keep the knee warm and lubricated as well. They can help reduce joint pain and at the same time add some stability to the knee.

3. Strengthen your gluteal or gluteal muscles. Strengthening the gluteal muscles is another thing you should do to prevent knee pain. Those who have weak gluteal muscles often find that their knees do not move correctly over their toes, which can be a major cause of knee pain.

Doing exercises like…

• seated hip adduction
• leg raises and
• shells

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

4. Replace shoes regularly. Finally, don’t stop getting new shoes when you need them: this is another big mistake that many people make and that can end with one injury or another. If it’s not your knees, you may be starting to get shin splints.

Good shoes are crucial 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 right away. You should never have to break in a pair of exercise shoes.

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