There are few things more frustrating than finding yourself unable to become more active. Whether it is due to an injury, illness, aging, or inactivity, when your body no longer lets you do the things you love it can be upsetting, to say the least. Fortunately, for most people, physical therapy can be an effective, non-surgical solution to get you off the sidelines and back to living the life you are meant to live.
Getting Off the Sidelines – How Physical Therapy Can Help
An effective, custom program to help you recover from your injuries quickly. With a program, it is often possible to regain your functioning – and sometimes you can even learn to function better than you did previously. There are many ways that physical therapy can help, including:
1. Help you move through and past pain
Pain springs up for a variety of reasons, but it is well-understood that improving mobility and strength can lessen pain. Whatever the injury or condition is, you CAN improve your quality of life if someone who understands how your body move can actually help you do it, so you don’t have to be afraid to move. To get the best, fastest results, the therapist will put their hands on your muscles and joints to help guide you into new movements that allow you to move better, feel better and stronger.
2. Increase your mobility
Doing the things you want to do requires comfortable mobility. If your injury or illness reduced your activity it was likely due to loss of strength and flexibility – things that a physical therapist can help you improve safely and quickly. When you start to see progress and gain back the movement you need, your therapist should then design a specific strengthening program unique to you, so you can become stronger and feel more confident!
You can regain strength and increase mobility so that you can walk, stand, and move with great confidence.
3. Help you move without fear or re-injury
Some injuries happen suddenly, like slipping and falling, while others happen gradually over time, such as recurring neck and back pain, rotator cuff shoulder pain, arthritis, or tennis elbow, to name a few. What all injuries have in common is that they damage tissues in your body, which leads to pain and gradual loss of activity. Over time, muscles heal and bones mend, but you may still experience painful movements.
Your body will start to compensate for movements that help you avoid pain and discomfort. However this usually happens unknowingly to you, and the pain can last long after the initial injury is healed. Often, X-Rays and MRIs images show everything is healed properly, and you wonder why you are still having pain moving. Or worse, you are told it’s your age and just live with it.
When it’s not treated timely, it can cause further damage to your body. The end result of an injury can often be that you have trouble with mobility long after the initial damage has healed.
Luckily, a knowledgeable orthopedic physical therapist know how your body is supposed to move and can help you improve it, even long after you have lived with it for a long time. They can evaluate your current movements and mobility issues and design a proven program that will work for you. You can recover more quickly and more thoroughly from an injury than you would on your own.
4. Regain cardiovascular strength
Even if your muscles, joints and bones are healed, you may find that your overall stamina, or cardiovascular health is holding you back. Your physical therapist can help you to steadily improve your strength and stamina so that your heart and lungs can keep up with your body and your lifestyle.
Want to learn more on how to get back on your feet so you are not afraid to move your body? You can watch this FREE TRAINING to learn how.
