Health blog Category: Healthy Tips
Sitting is the New Smoking: How Physical Therapy Combats the Negative Effects
We all know that smoking is bad for our health for a variety of reasons, but sitting can be every bit as dangerous to our long-term health. While many office workers strive long and hard to obtain a job that is “better” than damaging your body through strenuous hard labor, desk jobs may actually be worse for your body than being on your feet! Everything from obesity and metabolic syndrome to high blood sugar, abnormal cholesterol levels and even cancer have been linked to an excess of time spent on our rumps.
Read full blogStretches to Prevent Injuries
Hiking and rock climbing and other sports are wonderful recreational activities that provides significant benefits to the body. They can workout pretty much every muscle in our body and help to build up our endurance. Even if it’s a short hike or climb, if we’re spending much of it scrambling over rocks or walking up a steady incline, we will feel it!
While these activities are challenging, adventurous and a lot of fun, it can be rough on the body.
Read full blogA Strengthening Program’s Role in Preventing Injuries
For athletes, being stronger and strengthening properly will help them to experience a significant decrease in potential for injury, and experience an overall greater ease of activity and movement with everything they do. This all starts with knowing what muscles to work and how to work them correctly.’
Typically, there will be no immediate effect to having weakness in a particular muscle in your body. The effects are usually more long term in the sense that “weakness” or lack of proper strength in an area, results in excess friction on the bones in the joint, excessive wear and tear on tendons and cartilage around a joint, and more.
Setting up a Strengthening Program
First and foremost, you need to know what the strength of the smaller supporting muscles are, in the area you wish to begin to strengthen.
Read full blogHow Physical Therapy Can Correct Muscle Imbalances
Many people still believe that physical therapy is only needed for rehabilitation after injury, accidents, or surgery. In reality, almost everyone can benefit from physical therapy to prevent minor recurring aches and pains or subtle losses of flexibility from becoming debilitating health issues. Physical therapists can help because many of our aches and pains are caused by muscle imbalances. This is true whether we are couch potatoes, dedicated fitness enthusiasts or athletes.
Read full blogProper Preparation is Key to Avoiding Injuries
Nowadays, free-time activities can look a little different for kids as various technologies are at our fingertips. If you’re a student athlete who participates in sports year-round, you might maintain a higher level of physical activity. Overall though, the general lack of physical activity, means fitness levels decrease significantly and therefore the return to sports is more difficult. It’s all the more reason why proper preparation is key.
When returning to any sport, it’s important to treat your body appropriately, with care and attention.
Pre-Operative Therapy: “Pre-hab”
So we did physical therapy a year ago and it helped to keep from having surgery last year, but our pain has returned and we’re back to missing out on the things we were able to do some time ago. We aren’t able to ride your bike for cardio anymore, we have an immense amount of pain going up and down the stairs in our home, road trips are just NOT a thing anymore, and most importantly we are no longer able to get down on the floor to play with our grandkids!
Read full blogHow to Strengthen Your Core Muscles in 4 Easy Steps
Have you ever had that sagging feeling at the end of a long day? You know, when your belly seems to protrude way out and your back aches. The main reason for this is your lack of core strength. Your core is made up of a variety of muscles that support your trunk and spine. These include your abdominal, erector spinal, multifidi, pelvic, and hip muscles. A healthy, strong and flexible core is the key to having great posture, a slim stomach, relieving back pain, and feeling energetic.
Read full blog4 Ways to Run Faster and Farther
Do you run frequently for exercise, or just want to start so you can live a healthier lifestyle? Learning to run properly can make this a very effective form of exercises for any age group or fitness level.
The way that you run is a matter of energy and efficiency. You may ask yourself how some people can run farther, faster and make it seem effortless. The trick is in how their body moves.
Physical Therapy Benefits You Pre-Surgery
Preparing for surgery can be daunting in itself. Your body is about to go through a planned trauma, not to mention the mental preparation you have to plan for with the known discomfort to follow, even though you are already in pain and that’s why you’re going through with the surgery. Does this ring a bell? The calming factor in this though, is physical therapy can help. Pre-Op Physical therapy can help before your surgery even happens, for a couple of reasons.
Read full blog‘Do Anywhere Workouts’ – Stretches
School is starting again and your schedules are filling up. But as schedules get busy, it can be tough to keep fitness towards the top of you priority list. So, here are some ‘Do Anywhere Workouts’ and stretches you can perform anywhere without special equipment or a gym. Keep in mind, you don’t need a fancy stretching strap. Some other things that will suffice are:
- belt
- dog leash
- scarf
- towel
For all of these stretches, you will be seated on the floor, a couch, a bed or an exercise table, whatever is comfortable and available for you.
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