Let's be honest, typical physical therapy misses the mark. Resistance band exercises from a therapist who doesn't understand principles of strength and conditioning, who isn't an athlete themselves, and would rather massage or poke you with random tools to temporarily make you feel better doesn't cut it. What if instead, you could receive evidence-based care from a Doctor of Physical Therapy, Strength and Conditioning Coach, and current athlete? With remote pain and rehab coaching, you can!
The first goal is to help you feel listened to. Seems incredibly basic, right? Maybe you've experienced that this is often a missing piece in health care. So together, we'll discuss the history and elements that may be contributing to your pain or injury and discuss what we can do together to progress. Together, one of our end goals should be that you don't have to completely rely on your health care provider (yes, me included), pain medication, or "corrective-exercises" in order to do the things you enjoy like getting back to training.
The truth is, most in-person services of typical physical therapy leave you wanting more one-on-one time with your therapist, lack equipment or exercise prescription to make lasting progress, and do not provide a comprehensive training program specific to your goals. With virtual pain and rehab coaching, you get more face-time with your therapist/coach and are able to reach them any time instead of waiting till your next appointment. You will receive a program entirely unique to you! No cookie-cutter program here. Worried about equipment? No problem, after treating patients over the past year and change... we know how to be creative with limited equipment.
Sometimes, we just want someone to prod around our painful areas or do something to us that makes us temporarily feel better, and that's ok. However, showing you ways that you don't need to rely on this and give you the knowledge to overcome your pain or injury is the gift that keeps on giving.
Believe it or not, manual therapy treatment is repeatedly shown to be less effective than exercise based treatment for pain and musculoskeletal injury. Think of all that you gain in strength, mobility, body composition, and resiliency with exercise that is lost with manual therapy treatment alone.
So, despite common narratives of needing foam rolling, massage, dry needling, laser, or "hands-on" treatment, outcomes favor exercise for reasons that go beyond a simple pain score. But let's talk more about this thing we call pain.
When we experience pain, it does not necessarily mean we are damaging or causing injury. In fact, the longer pain goes on, the less helpful it is in reliably providing a message that something is wrong.
A common narrative is that pain means damage and that it's primarily caused from things like posture, "tight" muscles, or "core weakness". However the evidence from research is repeatedly showing us that this is not true.
Pain has MANY factors as shown here. Something being physically “wrong” or injured is likely only one POTENTIAL factor among many other potent contributing factors. For example, all you've been told from family, friends, doctors, Google, your beliefs about what pain means, how good of a day you're having, and dozens (if not hundreds) of other seen and unseen factors are currently contributing to your discomfort.
When dealing with complex problems such as pain and injury,, it can be overwhelming thinking up a cocktail of complicated solutions. However, because of it's complexity and inability to tightly control ALL the contributing factors, many things can have a positive, restorative effect!
This is not to suggest that a shotgun approach is a cure-all. There may be particulars in your case that have a higher likelihood of working well for you versus someone else... but let us worry about how to figure that out! We will provide as much education as you feel you need, in the way you need it, to help you understand the "why's" of your remote pain and rehab program.
If avoiding surgery and getting rid of pain medication is your goal, there is likely more you can do about it than you realize, and we can show you how.