Exercise is a human invention designed to offset the sedentary lives our society now leads. In the physical therapy world, I do my best to understand the nature of your physical complaints, understanding that there is more to pain than just a physical problem; Nutrition, fatigue, unhealthy habits, and stress all play significant roles in a particular physical health complaint. I will do my best to address these issues either with direct strategies or a referral to a colleague that is better equipped than I to deal with them. But, when it comes to the physical complaint two important approaches collide to give you the best shot at rehabilitating properly:
- Treatment
- Training
Simple.
Treatment is passive. I will utilize any or all of my therapeutic tools to assist your tissue in healing: Spinal Manipulation, Manual Therapy, Soft Tissue Therapy (Graston, Functional Release), Laser Therapy, among others (including recommendation for massage, acupuncture, etc.). Treatment provides a window of opportunity for you to train your tissue to behave the way it was designed.
Training is active. Training is exercise, but it is exercise that is carefully designed to train the tissue to behave the way it is designed to behave. If you do not change your physical behaviours to train your tissue to behave differently, your tissue will regress back to the injured/painful state.
To help you with your training, I employ a training regime known as Functional Range Conditioning (FRC). Rarely does a patient visit go by without me demonstrating a new, or reviewing an old, exercise to help you recover. If only I had a video library for you to refer to to help you remember how to perform this crucial part of your rehab! Now I do. My youtube channel is growing everyday with new videos of exercises. As new ones are recorded, you can find them on my youtube channel, or be alerted to them via my Facebook Page, Twitter Feed, and/or Instagram. If you’re one to dabble in social media, give me a follow! In addition to my own videos, tweets, and posts, I tend to ‘share’, ‘re-tweet’, and ‘like’ all sorts of health relevant stuff. All of my social media accounts are accessible via my website (top right hand corner).