A runner’s road to recovery - which would you choose?
If you’re a runner, chances are good you’ve experienced a running injury. Whether it’s a light jog around the block with your dog once a week or heavy-duty training for ultramarathons, the repetitive impact of running often causes aches and pains that need some professional help.
So which physical therapy experience would you choose?
You are told to stop running and only do boring PT exercises, you are told to come to PT 2-3 times per week where you do more boring exercises, lie still for massages and other techniques to “fix” some part of your posture, and have odd electrical gadgets attached to you or used on you. The overarching message is your posture, your running, or something else inherent to you, caused your injury and you need someone else to “fix” you.
You are given a walk/run program, you are encouraged to go for walks with your running friends, and you are doing exercises with a clear connection to running. Your PT helps you develop a solid understanding of what is causing your pain and a clear plan of simple, everyday things you can do to address it, and you have new strategies to prevent future injuries and improve your running performance. Since you understand your pain and have a concrete plan for what to do on your own, there’s no need to see a PT more than once a week or less. You have gained a new awareness of all the control you can take back over your life and you feel empowered!
At GMCF PT, we recognize that your pain is important and affects all parts of your life. We want to understand your physical sensations, but we want to know more than that, too. We want to know how those sensations affect your ability to do the activities that are important to you. We want to know how that affects you emotionally and how it affects your relationships (to learn more about this approach, also called the biopsychosocial model, see the previous blog post). Knowing all of this information allows us to fully understand why you are experiencing pain. Then we can provide you with the right education and create the right strategy to keep you involved in the things that give you joy, while progressing through the rehab process. This allows you to not only regain important parts of your life back quicker, but to become better equipped to handle future pain that threatens to limit the things you love to do.
For runners and athletes of all kinds, GMCF PT offers treatment plans motivated by your needs and your priorities, and not motivated by what your insurance company is willing to pay for.
To get started with a truly patient-centered physical therapy experience, get in touch & let’s get to work!