Health blog
What’s up with this noisy upper body joint?
By: Alyssa Burke, PTA
Have you ever moved your arm to grab something and felt or heard a pop or click or felt a grinding sensation in your shoulder? If you have, you’re not alone. Many people experience the same clicks and pops in their joints. Clicking and popping in joints is one of the more common complaints we hear in the PT clinic. The shoulder is a complex joint, it is a ball and socket joint which means it can move in many directions.
What Our Core Workout Should Also Include
The core must be one of the most complex features of the human body. Everything we do involves the core. What is the core exactly? A lot of people think it’s those wonderful six-pack abs. But really that’s not the core, that’s only a small component of the core. So what else makes up the core?
- Your abdominal muscles
- Your hip muscles
- Your back muscles
- The muscles that surround your pelvis
You need all those muscles to be working well together as a team in order to have good core strength.
Read full blogEver feel a pinching sensation when reaching overhead?
By: Rachel Herrmann, PT, DPT
The shoulder is a complex region of the body made up of 3 joints, 4 muscles of the rotator cuff and over 10 other muscles that attach around the bones/joints that make up the shoulder. This means there has to be a lot of body parts in good working condition in order to have a healthy and happy shoulder.
One common shoulder issue is called impingement.
How Physical Therapy Can Get Rid of Your Headaches
By: Angie Austin, LPTA
Headaches are something we have probably all experienced at some point in our lives. In fact, some people experience daily headaches. A headache is associated with pain anywhere in the head or scalp. Sometimes, pain occurs in the neck. The symptoms of a headache can range from an ache or tension-like pain to sharp or piercing pain that can increase or be triggered by a number of causes.
Moving, standing or sitting creating discomfort?
By: Mike Bills, MS PT
Many people seek physical therapy because of hip pain, specifically, pain in their hip flexor muscles. When you experience this pain in the front of the thigh, it usually stems from the fact that your hip flexor muscles, there are a few of them, are being overworked for a number of reasons.
These reasons can include:
- Weak gluteal muscles
- Tight IT band
- Weakness in the hip flexors
When this overworking and stress happens, the hip flexor starts to get tight as a result.
Read full blogWhat happens when your muscles don’t have proper strength?
By: Mike Bills, MS PT
Typically there will be no immediate effect to not having the proper strength 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. This is why things like tendonitis get started.
Back Discomfort Making it Difficult to Complete Our Daily Routine
Back discomfort can be debilitating no matter what your walk of life. People living with back pain are often plagued by the inability to sleep, stiffness or difficulty with activities that they love. These may include running or hiking, gardening, walking the dog or playing with their grandchildren. Back pain is something that can affect anyone; they may be young athletes, active parents or older adults.
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. Back pain is no different.
Experiencing weakness, limited range of motion or pain in the knees?
Knee Arthritis is a very common condition that we treat here at Loudoun Sports Therapy. Arthritis in this joint actually impacts every age group. Even younger athletes deal with arthritis. Arthritis is the break down of the cartilage between the bones in a joint.
Given how much wear and tear our knee joints undergo throughout our lifetimes, it might not surprise you that arthritis is most common in these joints. Knee arthritis can cause a lot of problems such as pain, limited range of motion, weakness, swelling and difficulty performing daily and functional activities.
Avoiding high impact activities because of joint discomfort
Knee injuries are one of the most common injuries that we see in physical therapy, whether it is sports related or just degenerative changes that occur as we age. Some of the most common injuries are sprains and strains, osteoarthritis, ligament injuries and meniscus injuries. All of these cause pain, weakness and a decrease in functional activities.
Ligament injuries more commonly occur with the more active patient population. Sports such as soccer and basketball that involve jumping, planting of the leg or a change in direction can cause ACL tears.
Read full blogEver have an ache that seemed to start for no reason?
Believe it or not, your hips play a large role in the health of your back and limited hip mobility can cause back pain. Do you have an aching back at the end of the day and wonder where the source of your pain is coming from? You are not alone! More than 80 percent of the population will suffer from back pain at least once in their life, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control.
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