Did you know that there are 360 joints in the human body? You use your highly functioning musculoskeletal system every time you rush to catch the bus, win a basketball game against the other team, or play pool with pals. It implies that your ability to move depends on your bones, joints, and muscles. But do you wonder what types of joints are vital for your body? And how do they function?

Joint problems typically develop over time, making it difficult for you to move about normally. Your joint problems are unique from many other health concerns. The reason is that it is often workable to spot early warning signs of wear and tear. They are among the first sites where you notice your advancing years. 

Given the significance of movement and mobility, you must take proper care of your joints. But before that, let’s take a moment to look at the structure of a joint. It will help you understand what goes into keeping your joints healthy.

• Newborns have 360 joints, but adults have about 206 as some fuse.
• The hip joint is the only ball-and-socket joint supporting weight with full motion.
• The knee is the largest joint and prone to injury due to its complexity.
• The shoulder joint is the most flexible, allowing nearly all movement directions.
• The TMJ, connecting the jaw to the skull, is one of the most used joints.
• Cartilage heals slowly due to its lack of blood supply.
• Animal joints, like in horses, are adapted for speed and power, differing from human joints..

We know that bones and muscles function together. Instead, these are joined via joints. While your muscles pull on your bones as you move, your bones support the entire weight of your body. The connecting points that allow bones and muscles to move are called joints. 

Cartilage is a kind of tissue that allows two adjacent bones to come into touch (or articulate).

It is commonly called the synovium. The synovial membrane is a gentle connective membrane that coats the inside synovial joint capsules. It is a crucial element of the tissues that make up an integrated joint, along with other parts of joints.

It is a thick fluid that fills the space between the joints in our body.

Consider a skeleton with just one solid bone. Moving would be pretty challenging in those situations. Instead, nature found a solution by breaking the frame into several bones. It has formed joints where the bones meet. You use these joints without thinking twice to stand up, sit down, pick up, and put things down.

The shoulder and hip joints are examples of joints designed for more complex motions. These enable rotational, sideways, forward, and backward movement. You can imagine how limited your range of action can be if any of these joints are damaged by considering everything you can accomplish with them.

Our knees and elbows are joints that open and close like a hinge, allowing us to straighten or bend our legs and arms. However, not every joint has the same structure. For instance, although joints like the knees offer stability, the wrist, ankles, and hips enable movement such as gliding, skipping, and running. 

Their anatomy also varies, much as their functions do, which implies that you must also take special care of them. While cartilage holds bones together in certain joints, others are formed entirely of strong collagen fiber. In other cases, synovial fluid is between the cartilage pads at the ends of the articulating bones. 

Therefore, even though you might believe that all joints can be maintained using the same techniques, you might need to reconsider your joint-health plan. 

Let’s first look at the many types of joints we live with.

The term ‘syn-‘ indicates that the bones are fused and hence allow for little or no mobility. These types of joints might be one of two types. A synarthrosis is simply an immovable joint. This joint creates a tight link between the adjacent bones, which protects internal systems like the brain or heart. An apparent example of this joint is the fibrous joints of the skull. It has sutures along with the cartilaginous epiphyseal plate.

Amphiarthrotic joints are cartilaginous joints in which intervertebral discs join vertebrae. These allow for minor motions between neighboring vertebrae. Intervertebral disc joints are an example of a somewhat movable joint. Cartilaginous joints feature a pillow of cartilage that lies between the bones, and the bones sit on these sheets of cartilage. This cartilage cushion prevents the bones from pressing together. Here, cartilage holds the bones together and permits some degree of mobility. 

The spine, where each vertebra is connected by cartilage, can serve as an illustration. Each vertebra moves is proportional to the one above or below it. It is because of this arrangement that gives the spine flexibility. Because of this, you can bend sideways, backward, or forward without hurting your back.

These types of joints only allow for restricted mobility. This cartilaginous joint is exemplified as pubic symphysis lying on the pelvis. This joint connects both side-by-side hip bones of the pelvic. This joint allows for slightly higher mobility compared to a fixed joint. This joint primarily provides some flexibility to the body for functions like bending.

The third kind is the one that is most prevalent in the body. The majority of adult joints are diarthrosis or freely mobile joints.

In these joints, the opposing bones’ ends are covered by hyaline cartilage, known as articular cartilage, and are separated by a gap known as the joint cavity in this joint. The joint components are encased in a thick fibrous joint capsule. The ligaments that keep the bones together make up the capsule’s outer covering. The synovial membrane is the inner layer that expels synovial fluid into the joint space to lubricate it. These joints are commonly referred to as synovial since they all contain a synovial membrane. 

This synovial fluid lubricates the region and facilitates smooth joint motion. Thanks to this joint, you may move in almost any direction, which offers the most range of motion.

Your elbows, knees, hips, and shoulders are a few examples. Additional classifications of synovial joints include the following six types:

This joint is regarded to be a relatively basic joint because it only enables mobility on one axis. It solely allows for flexion and extension motions. The most commonly known hinge joints are in the elbow and knee.

These joints are made up of two bones. One has a broad rounded end that fits into the other’s cup-like socket. This type of joint is seen in the shoulder and hip joints. A ball and socket joint in the human body has the most mobility, including rotation, flexion, extension, abduction, and adduction.

This sort of joint  can only rotate along one axis. The Atlanto Occipital joint inside the neck frequently illustrates this joint.

This joint is comparable to a ball and socket joint in the human body. However, it does not rotate. It only permits mobility in two axes. The wrist joint is one example of this.

It is analogous to an ellipsoid joint, which consists of two bones, one that has a concave surface while the other has a convex one. To allow for limited rotational mobility, the convex edge of the first bone articulates with the concave facet of the next. The carpometacarpal joint in the thumb is a classic example of this joint.

Depending on the substance that builds up the joint as well as the existence or lack of a cavity inside the joint, they are classed as bony, fibrous, cartilaginous, or synovial. Fibrous joints arise when nearby bones are strongly associated with fibrous connective tissue. Similarly, cartilage connects adjacent bones at a cartilaginous junction. However, at a synovial joint, the sliding bone faces are not in immediate touch with one another, but instead meet in a fluid-filled joint space.

A fibrous joint is one in which the bones are held together by muscular, fibrous tissue. These joints often need strength and stability throughout their range of motion. Usually, thick fibrous connective tissue holds these fibrous joints together. 

To gain an idea, picture the bony skull plates. These plates’ edges are connected by links or joints comprised of fibrous tissue. To safeguard the brain, the idea is to make them inflexible. 

These are types of articulations in which the bones that comprise the joint are close together. An analog is an interlocking pattern created by putting puzzle pieces together. The joining of bones is held together by connective tissue in a suture.

They have limited mobility until they are roughly 20 years old, when they become set and motionless. They are especially crucial during delivery because the joints are not connected, enabling the cranium to bend as it goes down the birth canal.

It is a joint that occurs when one bone slips into another. Connective tissue holds the sliding surfaces intact. The bone edges in the articulation are tight together, comparable to the suture.

These are joints that may move slightly (amphiarthroses). They are made up of bones kept connected by an interosseous membrane. Syndesmosis joints include the middle radioulnar joint and the middle tibiofibular joint.

Here, the bones are joined together by fibrocartilage or hyaline cartilage. This joint is found in two basic forms.

One of them is primary,  while the other is secondary cartilaginous. The primary one is named as synchondroses,  while the secondary is called symphyses.

Synchondrosis is a form of articulation deemed immovable in a cartilaginous joint. A synchondrosis is a joint with articulating surfaces close together yet separated by hyaline cartilage. The hyaline cartilage in synchondrosis eventually transforms into bone or fibrocartilage.

The bones in synchondrosis are joined together by hyaline cartilage. You cannot move these joints (synarthrosis). When we find some of the joints of this kind, we find those that exist in between the diaphysis and epiphysis of a developing longer bone.

Symphysial joints are formed when the bones are joined together by a layer of fibrocartilage. You can move types of joints gently (amphiarthrosis). The pubic symphysis and the junctions between vertebral bodies are two examples. The joint is elastic enough to act as a hinge, permitting the two hip bones to move moderately upward and outward, comparable to the way the ribs do when inhaling air. 

This minor movement is exacerbated in a woman undergoing labor by fluid penetration of the joint and its fibrous coating toward the completion of pregnancy; the moisture leaves the joint much more elastic. In both sexes, the joint serves as a shock absorber for the pelvic bones when running and leaping.

This joint is identified as a fluid-filled joint cavity housed inside a fibrous capsule. These are the most frequent form of the joint in the body and are freely mobile (diarthrosis).

The structural divisions of body joints primarily focus on how the bones are held together and articulate against one another. The degree of mobility detected at all types of joints determines the functional categorization of body joints. Thus, certain fibrous and cartilaginous types of joints are functionally characterized as synarthroses. While others are amphiarthroses, depending on their capacity to move.

After all, you have subjected them to a great deal of abuse during your life. Poorly maintained joints are more prone to damage, inflammation, and general dislocation. You might feel the consequences of usage