Chances are you have seen runners and people in rehabilitation from serious knee injuries wearing straps or sleeves on their knees. While it might seem hard to believe, those devices can actually help relieve knee pain. Knee pain and injuries happen when you damage cartilage, muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones in your knee. A blowContinue Reading »
"Almost Daily Health Tips From Physical Therapist Tom Willemann..."
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Tag: Strengthening
Add Strength Training to Your Stretching
Let’s face it: Stretching feels good. It is relaxing, and getting all the kinks out of scrunched-up muscles can be liberating. Unfortunately, improving your flexibility through a stretching class is simply not enough, either as a therapeutic approach, or to protect your body from future damage. Strength training is a necessary companion to your stretchingContinue Reading »
Bracing Yourself Against Arthritic Knee Pain
Here’s the catch-22 of physical therapy: Reducing pain requires physical work, but physical work can cause pain that makes it extremely difficult to do that work. Patients with arthritis of the knee joint often find that using a brace allows them to perform strengthening exercises more easily. But some people wrongly believe that aContinue Reading »
Low Back Pain and Bed Rest
Be careful about too much bed rest. Multiple studies show more than 2-3 days of bed rest for patients who have low back pain actually demonstrate a greater loss of range of motion and are weaker than patients who remained active as soon as possible without increasing their symptoms. Other studies demonstrate pain levels ofContinue Reading »
Restoring Range of Motion After Elbow Replacement
Total elbow replacement refers to a surgery that creates an artificial joint. Damage to your elbow can initially occur from badly broken bones, severely torn tissues, a tumor in or around the elbow, or osteoarthritis, or unsuccessful previous surgery. Your normal elbow joint is comprised of two bones—the humerus in the upper arm and theContinue Reading »
Team Sports: How Safe Are They?
The physical benefits of participating in sports are obvious in our increasingly obese society, but team sports also teach cooperation, responsibility to the team, mental preparedness and social development. What about the risk of injury? With the consequences of repeated concussions of football players as a hot topic in the news, it is reasonable toContinue Reading »
Transitioning to Indoor Activities
While summer offers opportunities to walk, jog, bicycle, garden, play sports and get into shape, cold weather brings the temptation to eat more, move less and hibernate indoors. Shorter days, frosty air and holiday parties can threaten the fitness gains you made during the summer. Instead of fighting the cold and darkness, you can maintainContinue Reading »
Knee Replacement Surgery: Before and After
Many patients believe that a physical therapy regimen follows joint replacement surgery, but exercise before surgery can reap many benefits afterward. Think about it: The pain in your knee has probably rendered you less active. Less activity causes the muscles—in this case, those in the thighs and hips that directly and indirectly support your badContinue Reading »