You squat down.
Snap.

Stand back up.
Crackle.

Rotate your hip.
Pop.

And somewhere along the way, somebody tells you:

“You have arthritis.”

For a lot of golfers over 40, that one word immediately changes the way they think about their body.

Is the joint shot?
Should I stop lifting?
Should I stop squatting?
Im not going to Stop Playing Golf!

And maybe the biggest question:

Can I still work out?

The answer isn’t simply to ignore arthritis.

But it also isn’t automatically to stop using your body.

The better question is:

How do you continue building and maintaining strength while respecting the joint you actually have?

THE SNAP, CRACKLE, PANIC

I call this:

The Snap… Crackle… Panic.

It’s when your joints start making noise, somebody tells you that you have arthritis, and you immediately decide that body part is screwed.

Your hip is done.

Your knee is shot.

Your shoulder is finished.

Suddenly the diagnosis starts dictating everything you believe you can and can’t do.

“I can’t squat.”
“I shouldn’t lift.”
“I can’t rotate anymore.”
“I probably shouldn’t walk 18 holes.”

Before long, you’re no longer managing the arthritis.

The arthritis is managing you.

That isn’t the goal.

Arthritis is real.

But hearing the word arthritis also doesn’t automatically mean it’s time to wrap yourself in Bubble Wrap and stop moving.

To understand why, let’s start with what’s happening inside the joint.

WHAT’S HAPPENING INSIDE THE JOINT?

For this conversation, we’re primarily talking about osteoarthritis and changes to the articular cartilage inside a joint.

Think:

• Hips
• Knees
• Shoulders
• Facet joints in the spine

At the ends of your bones is a smooth surface called hyaline articular cartilage.

Its job is to help one joint surface move smoothly across another.

But cartilage isn’t supplied with blood in the same way muscle tissue is.

That’s one of the reasons movement becomes so important.

The joint goes through:

Loading.
Unloading.
Compression.
Decompression.

This movement helps the cartilage exchange fluid, remove waste, and absorb nutrients through a process called imbibition.

And what helps create movement at the joint?

Your muscles.

Muscles pull on bones.
Muscles produce force.
Muscles absorb force.
Muscles create movement.

Which is one of the reasons my answer to arthritis isn’t automatically:

“Stop using the joint.”

Movement and muscular function still matter.
The question is how you’re using it.

THE FOUR GRADES OF CHONDROMALACIA

One way to understand progressive changes in articular cartilage is through four grades of chondromalacia.

And this is where the Rice Krispies analogy starts making a little more sense.

GRADE 1 — THE QUIET STAGE

Grade 1 begins with softening of the cartilage.

And here’s the interesting part:

You may have no idea it’s happening.

There may be no pain.

No obvious grinding.

Nothing screaming at you that something is changing.

You’re playing golf.
Working.
Training.
Living your life.

Meanwhile, the cartilage may already be starting to change.

That’s important because the day something begins hurting isn’t necessarily the day the process began.

GRADE 2 — SNAP

As the cartilage changes progress, you can begin seeing more changes to the surface.

More fissuring.
More fragmentation.
Maybe the joint starts clicking or popping more than it used to.

Does one pop mean you have Grade 2 cartilage changes?

Of course not.

I’m not diagnosing your knee through a blog.

But when a joint consistently starts behaving differently, that’s information worth paying attention to.

GRADE 3 — CRACKLE

Grade 3 represents deeper cartilage deterioration.

The surface becomes more irregular.
And this is where some people may notice more:

Cracking.
Grinding.
Crepitus.

You bend your knee and hear:

CRRRRUNCH.

Or you move your shoulder and can almost feel the roughness inside it.

This one is very personal for me.

I have Grade 3 chondromalacia in my right shoulder.

That shoulder cracks.

It grinds.
And I can feel it.

I’ll come back to what I do with it in a minute.

But one noisy joint doesn’t automatically mean you have Grade 3 changes.

The point is that a consistently noisy or changing joint may be giving you information.

Don’t panic.

But don’t automatically ignore it either.​

GRADE 4 — NOW WE’RE AT BONE

Grade 4 is the more severe end of the progression.

The cartilage has deteriorated through an area enough that the underlying bone becomes exposed.

But here’s something important:

That doesn’t necessarily mean the entire joint has deteriorated equally.
The changes can be much more concentrated in particular areas.

And seeing that firsthand completely changed how I thought about joint stress.

THE CADAVER KNEE THAT CHANGED HOW I LOOK AT ARTHRITIS

Years ago, I took a cadaver course where we opened up an actual human knee.

Not an MRI.
Not an anatomy illustration.

Not a plastic model.
An actual knee.

There was one specific area where the cartilage had deteriorated all the way down.

You could see the exposed bone.

And when I looked at it, the first thing that came into my head was:

A mortar and pestle.

Think about grinding spices.

You’re repeatedly applying pressure into a concentrated area.

Over.
And over.
And over.

Eventually, that particular area gets hammered.

That’s almost what this knee looked like.

There was this little gully where the same area had taken repeated stress.

And it made me start thinking differently about exercise.

WHAT PATH DOES YOUR BODY KEEP USING?

Your body has movement options.

But what happens if you continually use the same ones?

Same movement.
Same position.
Same range.
Same force.
Same pathway.

Now add golf to the equation.

Golf is repetitive as hell.

You have a lead side.
You have a trail side.
You load.

Rotate.
Shift.
Push.
Decelerate.

Then you hit another ball.

And another.
And another.

Practice Wednesday.
Play Friday.
Play Saturday.

Then Sunday morning your buddy texts:

“Golf?”

And like an idiot…

Hell yes.

Now imagine your trail hip has been loading and rotating through similar pathways thousands and thousands of times.

Eventually it starts pinching.

Losing motion.

Maybe hurting.

Maybe imaging shows arthritis.

And what does the golfer immediately want?

More Range

Hold on.

Instead of blindly forcing more motion through the same pathway, maybe the better question is:

What other options does your body actually have?

That’s where training becomes important.

SO… CAN YOU STILL WORK OUT WITH ARTHRITIS?

An arthritis diagnosis doesn’t automatically mean stop training.
But it may mean you need to stop training on autopilot.
There are three concepts I want golfers thinking about.

1. LACK OF USE VS. OVERUSE

There are two extremes.

And neither one is great.

LACK OF USE

Couch.
Car.
Golf
Repeat.

You barely challenge the muscular system.

You stop loading.
Stop strengthening.
Stop asking the muscles around your joints to maintain capability.

I jokingly call it:

Muscle death. Not literal death.

Nobody call the coroner.

But if you continually remove demand from the muscular system, don’t be surprised when your physical capacity begins going the wrong direction.

Then we have the other extreme.

OVERUSE

Same workout.
Same exercises.
Same range.
Same angles.
Same golf swing.

Over.

And over.
And over.
No variation.
Not enough recovery.

And sometimes not enough physical capacity to tolerate the amount of stress you’re putting into the system.

Neither extreme wins.

You don’t necessarily stop using your body because arthritis exists.

But you also don’t keep beating the living shit out of the same joint in the same way every day.

My philosophy is still:

Stimulate. Don’t decimate.​

2. ROTATE YOUR TIRES

This is a concept heavily influenced by my Resistance Training Specialist education, and I always want to give credit to Tom Purvis and RTS for influencing the way I think about exercise.

I call it:

ROTATE YOUR TIRES.

But forget the car for a second.

Here’s the analogy I want you to remember.

Think about a rug.

Imagine everybody in your house walks across the exact same section of that rug every single day.

Eventually, what happens?

That pathway gets worn down.

Meanwhile, huge portions of the rug barely get touched.

Your training can start looking the same way.

Same chest press.
Same row.
Same squat.
Same machine.
Same angle.
Same position.

Week after week.
Month after month.
Year after year.

You keep walking across the exact same strip of the rug.

So instead of constantly hammering the same pathway:

Use more of the rug.

That doesn’t mean random exercise.

It doesn’t mean circus tricks just so your workout looks different on Instagram.

It means intelligently varying the way you challenge your body.

Different angles.
Different positions.
Different directions.
Different exercises.
Different ranges.
Different force demands.

You’re still trying to build strength.

You’re simply not assuming there is one magical exercise that needs to be repeated forever.​

3. STOP ASSUMING BOTH SIDES NEED THE SAME THING

The third concept is unilateral training.

That simply means training one side independently.

And for golfers, I think this deserves more attention.

Golf isn’t symmetrical.

Your lead side and trail side aren’t doing exactly the same thing.

Your injury history isn’t symmetrical either.

And your arthritis may not be symmetrical.

So why would we automatically assume your right and left sides need identical training?

Maybe one side needs:

A different load.
A different range.
A different exercise.
A different amount of work.
A different progression.

That doesn’t mean we’re purposely trying to make you uneven.

It means we’re acknowledging something pretty obvious:

Your right and left sides aren’t identical twins.

MY SHOULDER IS A PERFECT EXAMPLE

I live this every day with my right shoulder.

I have Grade 3 chondromalacia.

It cracks.
It grinds.
I can feel it.

And at some point in my life, I understand that a shoulder replacement may become part of my story.

But I’m 46.

I’m not sitting around waiting for that day.

And I’m definitely not going to treat my right shoulder exactly like my left shoulder simply because they’re connected to the same body.

I train them differently when I need to.

If one shoulder position doesn’t feel great that day, I’m not going to keep hammering it because:

“Well, it’s shoulder day.”

That’s stupid.

I look at what options I have.

Maybe I change the angle.
Maybe I change the direction of force.
Maybe I change the exercise.
Maybe I change the range.
Maybe one arm gets trained differently from the other.

I go back to that rug.

I’m not going to continue walking across the same worn-out strip simply because that’s where I’ve always walked.

I’m going to find other intelligent ways to challenge the muscles around that shoulder.

Does that mean I’ve magically grown brand-new cartilage?

No.

I still have Grade 3 chondromalacia.

But I can work.
I can train.
I can swing a golf club.

And I’m going to continue doing what I can to maintain that shoulder’s capability for as long as possible.

That’s the message.

Respect the arthritis without letting arthritis become your identity.

WHAT SHOULD A GOLFER TAKE FROM THIS?

You don’t need to become an expert on cartilage.

You don’t need to diagnose yourself because your knee cracked while getting out of the cart.

And you definitely shouldn’t assume one article can tell you exactly what your arthritic hip, knee, or shoulder needs.

But you should understand this:

Arthritis changes the conversation.
It doesn’t necessarily end it.

The goal isn’t simply to ask:
“What exercises are good for arthritis?”

A better set of questions may be:

What movements can I tolerate?
Where do I have strength?
Where don’t I?

Am I constantly training the same patterns?
Am I doing too little?
Am I doing too much?

Do both sides really need the same thing?

And what does my body need to continue doing the things I want it to do?

For a golfer over 40, that’s a much more useful conversation.

THREE TAKEAWAYS

1. ARTHRITIS IS A PROCESS

Cartilage can begin changing before pain ever gets your attention.
Your first clue may simply be that a joint begins sounding or feeling different.
Pay attention without immediately panicking.

2. DON’T KEEP BEATING THE SAME PATH

Lack of use isn’t the answer.
Overuse isn’t the answer either.

Rotate your tires.

Think about the rug.

Stop hammering the same worn pathway and give your body other intelligent movement and strength options.

3. THE TWO SIDES DON’T ALWAYS NEED THE SAME THING

Golf isn’t symmetrical.

Your injury history isn’t symmetrical.
Your arthritis may not be symmetrical.
Your training doesn’t always need to be perfectly symmetrical either.

Train the body that’s actually in front of you.​