Patients often receive exercise handouts from physicians when initially presenting with musculoskeletal pain. The idea behind the handout makes sense on the surface, a low cost treatment option which may help a patient’s symptoms. Unfortunately, these handouts (often photocopied to death) lack specificity including providing the right handout to the right patient, as well as,...
Low back pain is a common condition best treated by Physical Therapists due to their unique ability to effectively provide all evidence based treatments (including spinal manipulation, directional exercise, and strength training) for this patient population. Large systematic reviews of the existing medical literature have repeatedly shown the benefits of strength training to reduce the...
As I have gotten older I have had more success hitting my health and fitness goals by shifting my workouts to the morning. I have grown to appreciate the mornings and their lack of distractions and daily tasks which often interfere with later sessions. Exercising as the first task of the day reduces one of...
Low back pain remains one of the constants in life, but thankfully is easily treated with Physical Therapy interventions including spinal manipulation, strength training, and directional exercise. Authors report 85-90% of low back pain symptoms cannot be attributed to any one tissue or pathology and remain non specific in nature. These findings, in part, have...
In our previous blog we discussed the best body weight exercises for the gluteus maximus. In this blog we will detail the evidence on the best strength training exercises utilizing weights for this muscle group. Neto and colleagues in Journal of Sports Science and Medicine reviewed the available evidence on weighted exercises commonly prescribed in...
The gluteus maximus muscle, found directly under the back pocket of your jeans, is key muscle group for both vertical (ex. getting out of chair) and horizontal (walking or running) force production. Despite its’ importance this muscle is commonly weak on examination in our Physical Therapy patients. Multiple lower quarter diagnoses including low back pain,...
Exercise remains one of the best interventions to improve cognition, memory, and executive function in older adults, as well as, those with a decline in these functions such as Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. The research has developed from correlational studies showing more active individuals demonstrated higher cognitive function to more recent studies showing the impact...
The 3 inevitable events in our society include death, taxes, and low back pain. Many of us will experience a significant episode of low back pain in our lives but the vast majority of these symptoms are not associated with serious pathology such as fracture or cancer. In our previous posts on low back pain...
Stress urinary incontinence (SUI) is defined as the involuntary loss of urine with activities that increase intra-abdominal pressure (IAP) such as coughing or sneezing. High-impact activities such as running, rotational movements, or jumping can also increase intra-abdominal pressure. Many people associate involuntary urinary loss with increased age or history of pregnancy and delivery. A number...
Over 200,000 Americans undergo a total hip replacement often as a treatment for severe hip osteoarthritis. Patients who enter the surgery in a weakened, less functional state have worse outcomes up to 2 years post operatively compared to their higher functioning peers (Fortin et al. 1999, 2002). This is concerning because the most rapid recovery...