Health blog Category: sports medicine
Changing positions constantly because of a back muscle strain?
Lower back problems are one of the most common complaints we encounter in physical therapy. The majority of adults will experience back pain at some point in their lifetime. The back pain they experience may only last a short time or it could linger for months. Back pain affects men and women equally and can even be seen in children and teenagers. There are many different structures that are at risk for injury in your back.
Read full blogTrouble standing up or sitting down because of hip pain?
People frequently come to physical therapy with different complaints involving the hip. The number one complaint being pain localized to the hip joint and muscles surrounding the joint. Some people also experience stiffness in and around the hip and even the lower back. These issues create difficulty moving the joint and generalized weakness in the affected leg.
Hip pain affects people from all walks of life. Unfortunately, because the hip is a weight-bearing joint, most people find difficulty in creating lasting relief for their symptoms.
Trouble reaching into a cabinet to put away groceries?
“My shoulder is killing me! I can’t even reach my arm up to wash my hair!” Shoulder pain is one of the most common complaints we hear in the physical therapy world from patients. Whether the pain is sharp and stabbing, or full and achy, it causes the person a significant amount of discomfort and inability to perform their everyday activities. So what causes shoulder pain in the first place?
The shoulder joint, also known as the glenohumeral joint, is the most mobile joint in the body, which unfortunately makes it the most prone to injury.
Looking to Run a 5K This Year?
Looking to run a 5K this year? As the New Year continues, keep your fitness goals strong with a fitness revolution. Below, we’ve outlined a Couch to 5k running program that incrementally increases mileage over time, allowing your body to properly adjust to additional activity. It’s vital to start slowly and build your mileage over time to avoid injury. All too often, people begin running too many miles too quickly and injure themselves as a result.
Read full blogToo much or too little movement in our joints?
Joint mobility and joint stability are two parts of a patient’s musculoskeletal condition that physical therapists assess.
- Joint mobility is the amount of movement that occurs within a single joint. So this is not just how high you can raise your arm or how far you can bend your knee, but it is how much or how little “wiggle” there is within a joint. Us therapist call this “wiggle” joint play and rate joint mobility as mild, moderate or severe hypermobility (excessive movement) and mild, moderate, or severe hypomobility (limitation of movement, stiffness).
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.
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.
