Many people walk into our physical therapy office with injuries from sports or exercise classes where they participate in activities that are too advanced for them. A main example of this is when people participate in High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) exercises. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think that HIIT is a great form of exercise. There’s actually very few forms of exercise I don’t approve of. The exercise isn’t the problem, it’s the individual’s preparedness for it. Do they have the prerequisite strength and motor control for those fast paced movements.

I get this question a lot from patients, but also from friends, relatives, friends of friends, etc. There is so much information out there, often conflicting, it can be paralysis by analysis. I think most of us are aware of the adage, “sitting is the new smoking.” I don’t want to spread a fear of sitting. Awareness would be a more useful term for me to use. Here’s a potential surprise for some folks out there. Sitting might provide relief for some spinal conditions... yes it’s true.

Your mother always told you breakfast was the most important meal of the day! Well, my version of this has become: “Win the morning and your back will feel better all day.” My sister taught yoga for several years, which worked out for me well. I got to tag along and take her classes for free! When she taught in the mornings, she would often say, “your spine is most honest with you in the morning.” I would wholeheartedly agree.

If you’ve ever dealt with sciatica, the very mention of it may give you the chills. It can be rough and nearly mind-bending discomfort –– or you could experience it as “tingling” or “tightness” that comes and goes. I would describe sciatica as symptoms radiating down the back of the glute, thigh, lower leg and foot. This is a gross oversimplification, but at least it embraces many of the phenomena that would qualify as stemming from your sciatic nerve. If you’re like most people, you’ll probably either let it go and think it’ll eventually go away on its own, or you’ll make one of the common mistakes below. Unfortunately, these mistakes can land you in a heap of trouble and you may find your life becomes more limited in the process. Take a look and see if you may be making these mistakes:

As a physical therapist and movement specialist, I treat from a holistic approach focusing beyond physical injury. This means that I consider other variables contributing to pain and healing potential including sleep patterns, nutrition, occupational hazards, and possible stressors. This recognition of the complexity of pain and injury led me to seek additional education by becoming a yoga teacher to serve as a way to teach the connection of the mind and the body. This connection is made stronger by having a strong practice in learning how to breathe.

“You don’t even look like you had a baby!” people say, as if it is the ultimate compliment a postpartum woman could receive. After growing a human being for 9 months, our goal is supposed to be to “bounce back” after giving birth as soon as possible. Wait for clearance at your 6 week follow-up, and you should be able to go back to your favorite bootcamp class and lose the rest of that baby weight, right?

“What do you think about chiropractors?” is definitely on the top ten list of questions that I get as a physical therapist. It’s a loaded question because physical therapists and chiropractors are often seen as competitors, but it doesn’t have to be that way. The truth is that working with other healthcare providers that offer complementary services can be powerful in helping clients reach their goals. When I find a good chiropractor or massage therapist, I don’t hesitate to tell my clients about them. This is why I’m excited to introduce Dr. Jill Driver, a local chiropractor who provides innovative care with our friends at Pierce Chiropractic.

As a physical therapist, I often hear from my clients, “I sit at a desk all day and I know I have horrible posture. That’s probably why my neck hurts, right?”. This idea generally comes from social media posts, posture “corrector” gadgets, and posture being the historical blame for every neck and back issue if you have a desk job. But here is the kicker — there is no perfect posture. That’s right, I said it. And this is what I reiterate to my physical therapy clients time and time again to break the negative cycle about posture being the cause of their pain.

Yoga is a centuries-old practice but oftentimes, teachers have not adapted the style of teaching to reflect the demands of modern day life. If we take a critical lens to the demands of the modern worker, we see more sitting, phone use, and overall sedentary lifestyle than ever before. These prolonged postures have an effect on our muscles and posture in a way that we may not be aware of when we walk into a yoga class.

Are you going stir crazy at home during this COVID-19 pandemic? We recommend these tips and measures to keep you going strong, and to prepare your body for other, more strenuous physical activities.