Often when people think of physical therapy they think of recovering from an injury or surgery; however, physical therapy has a variety of benefits and can be a beneficial tool in your workout routine as well. Physical therapy and recovery services can help your muscles recover faster, prevent injury, and maximize your efforts so that you are getting the most you can out of your fitness routine!

How Can Physical Therapy Improve My Workouts?

Treat And Prevent Injury

Incorporating physical therapy into your fitness routine can help prevent and treat injuries in a variety of ways. Obviously, working with a physical therapist is a great way to treat existing injuries. Treating existing injuries reduces the pain you experience and helps you heal but it also aids in preventing further injuries. For example, if you are suffering from an untreated knee injury when you perform exercises that heavily rely on your knees, you may utilize improper form to avoid putting too much pressure on your knee. This can potentially lead to experiencing other injuries as a result of repeated improper form. Additionally, working with a physical therapist can help increase your range of motion, strength, and endurance. Doing exercises that strengthen your muscles or increase your range of motion can lessen your risk of injury by eliminating excessive tension or stress on your muscles and joints. 

Accelerating Recovery

Working with a physical therapist and utilizing the available services and technology is a great way to help accelerate your recovery after exercising. Whether you are looking to improve your general recovery from muscle soreness, or if you have a specific injury that you need help recovering from, a physical therapist will be able to help. Two specific ways you can accelerate your recovery are with recovery technology that is specifically designed to promote faster recovery and with massage therapy.

At Advanced Kinetics we have a recovery room with technology designed to help our patients recover faster. For example, our infrared sauna can be used to help with muscle recovery and pain reduction. The heat from the sauna loosens and relaxes musculature which decreases stress on the body. The sauna also expands blood vessels and increases circulation which promotes healing to injured areas. Another tool utilized in our recovery room is our Normatec boot. The boot utilizes patterned massage and compression that mimics the body’s natural motions of the arms and legs to remove fluids and metabolites from the body after an intense workout. These pulsing movements are helpful in preventing injuries and accelerating recovery time. Optimizing your recovery between workouts is a great way to not only feel more rejuvenated for your next workout but it can also help prevent injury as there is less strain on your muscles. 

In addition to recovery technology, massage therapy is also a great recovery tool to incorporate into your workout routine. Massage therapy is a form of alternative medicine that involves the manipulation of soft tissues, including muscles, tendons, and ligaments. Massage therapy can help to relieve pain, reduce stress and anxiety, improve sleep, enhance athletic performance, and increase circulation. Massage is a great tool for recovery because it elicits a mechanical response and reflex response because of the pressure applied and the stimulation of the nerves during the massage. These responses reduce muscle tension, hypertonicity, and swelling. This can help reduce delayed soreness, stiffness, and fatigue. 

How Does Seeing A Physical Therapist Regularly Benefit My Workouts?

Perfecting your form

A leading cause of exercise-induced injury is improper form. Even if a movement feels fine in the moment, if it is repeatedly being performed with improper form it can lead to long-term injury. Improper form can often be associated with weak spots in the body, likely caused by a current or former injury. When you’re performing an exercise and the required muscle groups feel weak, we often fall back onto stronger areas of muscle that can support the weight, however, this may mean performing the move incorrectly. Working with a physical therapist can help you rebuild strength in areas that have suffered from current or previous injuries or naturally weak areas. 

Addressing injuries

Feeling soreness after exercising is common; however, feeling excessive pain is not. It’s common for someone to experience pain during or after exercising and assume it is a natural result of working hard. For a lot of people, if the level of pain does not impede their day-to-day life, they ignore it and assume it will go away eventually. This can potentially lead to long-term damage. Seeing a physical therapist regularly is a great opportunity to share any pain you are experiencing, no matter how minor it may feel. Your physical therapist can assess the situation and determine what the proper next steps are for your treatment. Whether you need a few extra rest days or focused therapy. 

At Advanced Kinetics Physical Therapy we offer physical therapy and recovery services that can help you get the most out of your fitness plan. These services are available at our locations in Falls Church and McLean, Virginia. If you’re interested in learning more about how our physical therapy and recovery services can help you, please get in touch with us!