3 Ways You Could Benefit From PT

3 Ways You Could Benefit From PT

As our society and healthcare system evolve, more and more people have made the mental shift to a proactive, preventative approach to their own health care as opposed to the old model of retro-active, “treat only what is broken” approach. Physical therapists are ideally suited to provide this type of preventative care. Long gone are the days that you need to be “injured” to see a physical therapist. Long gone are the days that you need to wait for a doctor to refer you to a physical therapist. Physical therapists are available right now to help guide you to a healthier path. Here are 3 specific ways you could benefit from working with a physical therapist.

1. Learn About Your Body

A good PT will do a thorough postural and movement screen during your evaluation. PTs are experts at looking at the body as a whole and identifying side-to-side differences. PTs are also anatomy and biomechanics nerds and usually love to educate their clients on their findings. Through this process you will learn a little more about how you are built, how you move, and things that could help you move more efficiently.

2. Prevent Injuries

If you are an active person and enjoy exercise and living life to the fullest, then the odds are that you will eventually have an injury or some sort of orthopedic discomfort. Most people know that PTs can help you rehabilitate from injuries, but PTs can do so much more than that. PTs can help identify weaknesses, imbalances, and movement impairments that maybe you didn’t even know you had and give you a plan to address them before they lead to an injury. We have a host of tools at our disposal to help address the issues that we find (dry needling, cupping, scraping, blood flow restriction training, etc), but the most important tool is our ability to prescribe exercise. Yes, exercise is so powerful that you should think of it as an actual prescription being handed to you at a doctor’s office. Moving your body in specific ways is oftentimes way more potent in preventing disease or injury than any medication you can take. At Outlast Health and Performance, we pride ourselves on giving very specific programs to each of our patients precisely to prevent injuries so that you can keep doing the fun, active stuff you love.

3. Get Healthcare Advice

PTs are doctors. Did you know that? We went to school for a long time and actually learned a lot of cool things along the way. A PT can give you advice to help feel and move better. At OHP, we are constantly advising our patients in exercise programming, exercise modifications, recovery recommendations, sleep hygiene, stress management, nutrition and supplementation, and goal setting.

In closing, if you always wondered what PT was like but thought you needed to be “injured” or “in pain” or “referred,” consider this your referral.

Shannon Hall, PT, DPT