Get More From Hinge Health: Tips for Boosting Fitness and Pain Relief

Hinge Health provides you with personalized exercises to relieve your pain and help you get back to the activities you love. Whether you’ve been following your program for a few weeks or many months, you might find that you want more of a challenge as you start feeling better and stronger. You might also be looking for ways to integrate Hinge Health exercises into your overall fitness routine for even more progress. Here are some tips from our Hinge Health coaches and physical therapists:

Note: Some tips involve selecting a previously completed exercise session. To do this, go to the Exercise tab in your app Library and select a level under “Your sessions.”

1. Share Feedback

After each daily exercise session, you may have the opportunity to provide feedback on how the exercises felt. You can pick if an exercise felt too hard or too easy. If you select "too easy," your program will automatically adjust to provide you with more challenging exercises in your next session. (If you pick “too hard” your program will adapt with an easier exercise.) This keeps your program challenging as you get stronger and more capable.

2. Ask Your PT for Help

You can also message your physical therapist (PT) in the app any time for help with your exercise. If you want more difficulty or different types of exercises, your PT can adjust them for your next session.

3. Add It Up

Heard us say that movement is medicine? The best dosage for movement is to spread it throughout your day. Short bouts of exercise throughout the day can make it easier to stay consistent. And research shows that exercise benefits are cumulative. You don’t have to commit to a long daily workout because every bit counts.

Add up the gains with multiple Hinge Health exercise sessions throughout the day. You could do one session in the morning, another for a midday energy boost, and one to wind down before bedtime. You can repeat your daily session (see italicized instructions above) — or choose a session for a different body area in the “Browse more exercises” section of your app Home screen.

4. Randomize It

Your body adapts to routine, so varying your exercises is key to improving your fitness and boosting your resilience to aches and pains. Use the "Browse more exercises" section on your app’s Home screen to mix things up. This section has workouts organized by categories, so you can explore short sessions for different body areas. 

5. Warm Up or Cool Down

Your Hinge Health exercise sessions make a great low-intensity warm-up to prepare your body for more strenuous activity. Warming up can enhance your performance, reduce soreness, and improve joint health by adequately preparing your body for movement. A post-workout cool-down with your Hinge Health exercises improves blood flow, gets rid of waste in your muscles, and helps your heart, lungs, muscles, and joints recover faster after exercise.

6. Use It for ‘Rest Days’ 

Intense exercise every day doesn’t set you up for long-term success. You need recovery days in between harder workouts, because strength gains happen after a workout, not during. But instead of complete rest, try active recovery — gentle movement that promotes blood flow, reduces muscle soreness, and helps your body recover after a more intense workout. Your Hinge Health sessions include stretching and strengthening exercises that can be great for low-intensity active recovery.

7. Amp It Up

If you’ve been using Hinge Health for a long time, you might enjoy repeating previous sessions and increasing the challenge by:

• Adding two to five repetitions before you start the next exercise in your session.

• Adding resistance with a resistance band or weights (small dumbbells, water bottles, or cans of soup). 

• Picking up the pace while maintaining control and form.

Repeating sessions while increasing the challenge can lead to greater gains than the first time through. (It’s also a great way to reflect on your progress.) Your coach and physical therapist can help you decide how to add repetitions or resistance and manage the overall load of your exercise program.

8. Switch It Up

Maybe you started Hinge Health with the shoulder program and now your shoulder is feeling great, but your knee is giving you some trouble. Talk to your PT or coach about addressing pain in another area. If you don’t have pain elsewhere, you could focus on an adjacent body part to build strength and support for your original area of concern (e.g. low back to hip). Or try a full body strength and mobility session in the "Browse more exercises" section of your app’s Home screen.

Sticking With Hinge Health

Whether you're looking to boost your fitness or simply maintain your progress, the flexibility of Hinge Health ensures you can keep tailoring your program to fit your needs. Continuing to include Hinge Health exercise therapy in your overall movement routine can prevent pain from returning and keep you strong, healthy, and better prepared for your next workout. 

This article and its contents are provided for educational and informational purposes only and do not constitute medical advice or professional services specific to you or your medical condition.

References

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2. Murphy, M. H., Lahart, I., Carlin, A., & Murtagh, E. (2019). The Effects of Continuous Compared to Accumulated Exercise on Health: A Meta-Analytic Review. Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), 49(10), 1585–1607. doi: 10.1007/s40279-019-01145-2

3. Olsen, O., Sjøhaug, M., van Beekvelt, M., & Mork, P. J. (2012). The effect of warm-up and cool-down exercise on delayed onset muscle soreness in the quadriceps muscle: a randomized controlled trial. Journal of human kinetics, 35, 59–68. https://doi.org/10.2478/v10078-012-0079-4

4. Van Hooren, B., & Peake, J. M. (2018). Do We Need a Cool-Down After Exercise? A Narrative Review of the Psychophysiological Effects and the Effects on Performance, Injuries and the Long-Term Adaptive Response. Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), 48(7), 1575–1595. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-018-0916-2

5. Kellmann M. (2010). Preventing overtraining in athletes in high-intensity sports and stress/recovery monitoring. Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports, 20 Suppl 2, 95–102. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0838.2010.01192.x

6. Bell, D. R., Post, E. G., Biese, K., Bay, C., & Valovich McLeod, T. (2018). Sport Specialization and Risk of Overuse Injuries: A Systematic Review With Meta-analysis. Pediatrics, 142(3), e20180657. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2018-0657 

7. Ortiz, R. O., Jr, Sinclair Elder, A. J., Elder, C. L., & Dawes, J. J. (2019). A Systematic Review on the Effectiveness of Active Recovery Interventions on Athletic Performance of Professional-, Collegiate-, and Competitive-Level Adult Athletes. Journal of strength and conditioning research, 33(8), 2275–2287. https://doi.org/10.1519/JSC.0000000000002589