Health blog Category: Physical Therapy
Protecting Our Hips from IT Band Problems
The IT Band and Surrounding Muscles
There are a number of muscles on the outside of our hip that attach to the IT band. The job of all of these muscles is:
- To keep the hip joint structures open
- Help support the joint
- Create the movement of the joint.
Most commonly what happens when we are experiencing some level of IT band problems, is that the muscles on the outside of the hip that are working to hold the hip together while we move the leg, are overworking.
Read full blogNew Year, New Goals
A new decade, a new set of goals to achieve. At LSTC, we’re all about helping people reach their physical goals. In fact, some of the goals we helped people reach last year were:
- Back to golfing
- Picking up a baby without pain
- Back to running
- Completing triathlons and the like…
- Sleeping comfortably
- Doing necessary household chores without wincing
- Managing concussions and getting students back to school and sports
- Dancing again without pain
- Taking trips out of the country pain free
- And so much more…
So what are your goals for the new year?
Read full blogHandle Low Back Pain
Low back pain can affect our lives in many ways. It can prevent us from exercising, sleeping, working, and spending time with our families. Those four activities alone make up pretty much the entire day for a lot of us. So the question becomes, why aren’t we taking action to handle our pain?
Signs and Symptoms of Low Back Pain
Every individual experiences different signs and symptoms, however these are the most common:
- muscle tightness or spasms
- sharp or dull pain
- limited range of motion,
- stinging or burning pain that travels to the buttocks or thigh
- numbness and tingling
- difficulty sitting, standing, walking, or going up stairs
- pain that increases with prolonged activity
Common Causes
Lower back injuries can occur from something as simple as twisting to grab something off of a shelf to a more serious scenario like falling off of a ladder.
- Soft Tissue Injuries:
- Soft tissue injuries such as, sprains and strains, are the most common cause of lower back pain.
Choose Physical Therapy First
Often times, people will get an injury or develop a pain and then wait a period of time to see if it will go away on its own—especially if it starts after we were a little more active one day. We assume the pain is normal.
But when that pain doesn’t go away, the next step is often to see a doctor, which may or may not be something you can schedule right away.
Treating Plantar Fasciitis & Other Foot Problems
It’s common, no matter our age, to experience foot and ankle pain, or discomfort in our heels and arches. This discomfort and pain makes daily, functional activities such as standing, walking and using stairs difficult. A common injury we see is plantar Fasciitis.
Causes
Foot and ankle pain can stem from a number of factors.
Some common ones include:
- Poor footwear
- Weakness in the intrinsic foot muscles
- Poor foot anatomy such has a flat foot or high arches
- Chronic issues with lower back, hip, or the knee that causes pain down into the foot and ankle
Plantar Fasciitis
One particular foot condition treated here at Loudoun Sports Therapy Center is plantar fasciitis.
Read full blogThe Importance of Strength in Athletes
Why Strength is Important
For athletes being stronger will help them experience a significant decrease in potential for injury. It will also allow them to experience an overall greater ease of activity and movement with everything they do. 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
This all starts with knowing what muscles to work and how to work them correctly.
Read full blogEliminating Back Discomfort
Being plagued by discomfort, the inability to sleep, experiencing stiffness, or having difficulty with activities that we love, are often indicators of back injuries. Often back pain is a signal of issues up and down the chain. Your spine connects your upper body and your lower body so it is important that we seek out the proper care as soon as possible to prevent other issues and to improve our quality of life.
Common Causes of Back Pain or Discomfort:
- Poor Posture
- Weak Core Muscles
- Poor Mechanics
- Weak Gluteal Muscles
- Degeneration
The ‘Trickle-Down’ Effect
Like many conditions, when we have pain or discomfort in one area of the body, if we don’t handle it, it can start impacting another area of the body.
Read full blogThe Solution to Foot and Ankle Pain
Foot and ankle problems make daily, functional activities such as standing, walking and using stairs difficult. In addition to the daily functions mentioned above, it can also mean they have trouble going from a seated position to a standing one without pain. Even taking just a few steps can be painful due to muscle tightness and joint stiffness.
Plantar Fasciitis
One particular foot condition we treat is plantar fasciitis. To start, what is your plantar fascia?
Read full blogDesk Jobs and Neck Discomfort
Many of us have sedentary jobs at a desk and/or using mobile technology for day to day communications. It’s so easy for us to slip into a poor posture when we’re mindlessly reading emails or sending texts. The problem is that these poor postures are therefore creating more complaints of neck discomfort.
Neck pain is no longer an ‘adult issue.’ At Loudoun Sports Therapy Center, we also see a lot of young people complaining of neck discomfort, headaches, trouble standing up and other painful issues in these upper body areas.
Forward Head Posture
Think about this: for every inch that your head is tilted forward, there is twice the amount of pressure being placed through your spine.
Read full blogImproving Balance and Reducing Injuries
Balance is what gives us the ability to walk on two legs and perform our daily routines. Our sense of balance changes over the course of our entire lives. Balance and the vestibular system develop as we grow from a baby all the way through adulthood, and then declines as we get older.
Most people don’t know their balance is not optimum until they suffer a sports injury, trip and fall, or lose their balance in the shower.
