Welcome to the GIFT guys, quick and dirty tips to slim down and shape up.

My name is Ben Greenfield, and in last week's episode, I taught you all about how your joints can break down.

I'd highly recommend you go back and listen to that one.

You can access it at iTunes or, for example, over at

quick and dirty tips.com. You'll just want to look for episode number 285. Now, in today's

episode, rather than just bringing you a bunch of bad news, I'm going to tell you how to keep

your joints from getting destroyed. Now, like I mentioned, last week you learned how overstretching,

overuse, and compression can eventually

destroy a joint, even in a healthy, active person.

But the good news is that with a few simple techniques squeezed into your weekly routine,

this type of joint pain can be avoided.

So let's take a look at three ways this can be accomplished.

Number one would be to do weekly self deep tissue work. Now deep tissue work

keeps your joints hydrated and supple and you don't necessarily need a weekly massage appointment

to pull it off. For example, I just recently posted a video over to YouTube.com

slash Ben Greenfield Fitness in which I show you an entire 30 to 60 minute routine that I do once a week with a foam roller.

And what I do is I combine cardiovascular moves with the foam rolling.

So I get a little bit of a cardio workout at the same time as I'm working all my deep tissue and getting all the knots and

fascial adhesions out of those areas that surround my joints. What you'll see when you go

and watch the video, which I'll link to in the show notes or which you can find over at

YouTube.com slash Ben Greenfield Fitness are me doing 15 different stations where I foam roll my calves, I foam roll my hamstrings,

the outside of my hips, the inside of my hips, my back from the bottom all the way to the

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