Exercise Rehabilitation
Amazing benefits of exercise:
There is overwhelming evidence for the benefits of exercise and rehabilitation exercise.
Rehabilitation exercise provides pain relief, reduces inflammation, improves mood, reduces anxiety and fatigue. It also helps with balance, prevents falls and improves sleep quality. It is a muscle relaxant, helps with concentration, boosts the immune system, improves bone health and sleep! It also reduces the risk for incontinence, dementia, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers.
Why wouldn’t you want to take this drug? Its free for all and comes with very few negative side effects.
Pain can be a huge obstacle for people to exercise
The problem is that pain can be a huge obstacle for people to exercise. Pain can also impact on a person’s ability to do the things in life that they that are important to them such as playing with kids, physical activity, sports, work, socialising and house work. This is turn can impact on a person’s physical and psychological well-being.
Physical inactivity on the other hand is the cause or major contributor to several chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cognitive impairment amongst others. It also increases risk for pain problems such as back pain, arthritis and chronic pain. As such, physical activity and exercise represent important components of primary prevention and management of at least 35 chronic diseases.
There are a lot of myths about exercise and pain that are really important to understand.
Myths about rehabilitation exercise and pain
- Joint, muscle and nerve pain should be rested to allow for recovery
- Pain with movement and activity means harm is being done
- If it hurts during exercise then it should be limited and or avoided
- Pain after exercise means you have done too much
- Heavy exercise such as running and loading wears out the tendons, joints and discs
- Exercising with tendon tears, arthritis, degenerative disc or disc bulges is dangerous
- Engaging the core with exercise is important to protect the spine
- Watching posture is important during exercise to prevent injury
- It is important to tense and protect the painful region when exercising
- If exercise hasn’t helped in 2 weeks then it won’t help
- You get too old to exercise
Facts about rehabilitation exercise and pain
- If it is broken, then resting the injured body part is needed, but only for a short period of time to allow for tissue healing. It is important to keep the rest of the body moving though, and exercise rehabilitation is the key to full recovery.
- Graduated exercise benefits disc, joint, muscle and nerve pain
- Acute tissue injuries to discs, ligaments, tendons and muscle’s recover faster with early graduated exercise
- Too much rest slows recovery
- Pain with movement and activity usually does not mean harm is being done unless the structure is broken after a traumatic incident
- If it hurts during exercise then make sure that the load and intensity is tolerable, and then gradually increased it to allow the body to adapt
- Its common to have some pain with exercise – but the good news is that this reduces over time
- Pain in muscles after exercise is how you get the muscles strong
- Graduated exercise such as running and loading makes the body structures stronger, not weaker
- There is no evidence that engaging the core or holding specific postures prevents injury or helps back pain any more than going for a walk
- It is important to relax and move the painful region when exercising
- The best kind of exercise is the kind you enjoy and do often…its even better if its social
- The ideal combination of exercise is cardiovascular (exercise that makes you puff) and exercise that gets you strong (exercise with resistance or using body weight)
- 150min/week of exercise is the minimum dose of exercise to get pain relief
- The benefits of regular exercise can be relatively quick for some (1-3 weeks) – where for others it may take 6-8 weeks to feel the benefits – so don’t give up early
- Exercise helps prevent injury and pain recurrence as well as several chronic diseases
- Exercise is for life … you are never too young or too old to exercise
What health conditions do we treat with rehabilitation exercise?
- Back and neck pain
- Sciatica
- Headaches
- Pelvic pain
- Arthritis
- Hip, knee, ankle and shoulder pain
- Tendinopathy
- Bursitis
- Plantar fasciitis
- Sports injuries
- Chronic pain
- Fibromyalgia
- Chronic fatigue
- Balance problems
- Coordination problems
How can we help you?
At Body Logic Physiotherapy we know that exercise rehabilitation is one of the most effective ways to treat and prevent all kinds of pain problems. Physiotherapists at Body Logic Physiotherapy are skilled in identifying and optimising movement patterns (habits that a person develops in the way that they move) through specifically tailored exercise programs. Little steps are often needed to overcome obstacles. We will coach you to gradually get relaxed, mobile, strong and active to achieve your goals.
There are three key components for exercise rehabilitation:
1. Understand your pain
It is important to understand why you have pain and the factors contributing to it. We will also determine if your condition has any risks for exercise.
2. Understand your body and develop the confidence to get moving and active
We know that when people are in pain it can be really scary and difficult to relax, move and get active. We know that when the body is in pain it often goes into ‘protective mode’, some muscles tense up, others switch off, and movement and activity become painful. It is very common for people to avoid movements and activities when they have pain, however in the long run this usually leaves them more weak, tense and vulnerable.
Our job is to help you relearn how to relax, move normally again, to get confidence back in your body, strong and to get active.
Because of this we personalise exercise to each individual’s pain problem, level of pain sensitivity, mobility, confidence, fitness and strength, and goals. We also consider your accessibility and preferences for physical activity.
We will make you aware of your body and why it is in pain. This allows for a graduated program in order to build confidence to get you back to doing the things you want and love to do. This often takes small steps first to build towards larger goals.
For most people this process can take 8-12 weeks or even longer depending where they started and what their goals have.
Everyone’s goals are unique. For some it’s to engage in living, for others it’s to play with their kids, participate in sports and work.
Like a drug, exercise needs to be at the right dose to be effective!
3. Participating in physical activity
Our end goal is to get you active and healthy and achieving your goals. Participating in physical activity is one of the most precious things you can give yourself.
We can facilitate exercise rehabilitation one-to-one where we give you an exercise plan to work on at home, in your preferred environment or at your own gym.
At Body Logic Physiotherapy, we also have a fully-equipped Exercise Rehabilitation Studio (including cardio, pilates, strength and conditioning equipment). with supervision this can help relieve pain, enhance function and gain confidence.
We provide one-on-one sessions and group classes for:
- Relaxation
- Movement training
- Functional Rehabilitation
- Strength and Conditioning
- Fitness
- Pain rehabilitation
- Balance training
We also provide specialised classes for:
- Running
- Dance
- Children’s and teens classes
- Post-operative rehabilitation
- Knee and hip pain (GLA:D program)
we offer a range of services
we offer a range of services
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