Most of us take our joints for granted, but think of life without them. No twisting, turning, bending, typing, running. No yoga classes or sex positions involving the backseat. No nothing, except for a life of snakelike or stilt-like movements.We become well aware of their importance when our joints start to deteriorate. Maybe your knee pops each time you bend. Or you can’t lift the dog food bag anymore. Or maybe your ankles feel like a crumbly piecrust.There’s a reason for that. Hardly any of our ancestors lived longer than 40 years, so there wasn’t a need for our joints to function beautifully after that. Now that’s no longer the case. Those joints need to tie shoes and thumb-type on your Berry.You need to enjoy all that life offers.To get there, you must know how your joints work, and how to keep them bending as smoothly as possible. Joint injuries are only predictable with 20/20 hindsight. We sometimes wish we’d protected them better in youth. Read on to learn how you can minimize your pain.