Today's article focuses on the importance of your home exercise program to a quicker recovery.
The HEP plays an important role in getting you back to 100%. So you can do those things you love.
Like enjoying the Thanksgiving festivities with your family and friends.
Your Home Exercise Program: The Secret to a Quicker Recovery.
Your physical therapy sessions at DSPT last 45-minutes. Most people attend PT two times a week. Or 1.5 hours total. What happens during the remaining 166.5 hours is critical to a quicker recovery.
This is why we give you a home exercise program (HEP). If you do your HEP as prescribed, your course of care goes much smoother. And you don't have to hang around with us any longer than you need to.
Why is your HEP so important?
When we evaluate you, we determine what's going on with your injury. We bring out your symptoms so we're able to determine the source. We discover what's tight, what's weak and where your body is off.
The imbalance or asymmetry we find, determines what exercises you'll need to do to get back on track. The HEP is tailored with specific exercises designed to help you relieve the problem. These exercises complement the work we do with you at your sessions.
Because there's only so much you can do within a treatment session.
Strengthening and flexibility are all about progression. In order to progress to the next level you need to reach a certain milestone. To reach that goal, you have to be consistent with your exercises.
If you're not consistent, you won't be strong enough to move forward. What happens during your treatment is dictated by what you do when you're not with us. So a lack of consistency means your course of care goes on for a longer period of time.
We can show you what's wrong.
But it's up to you to do the work to fix it. The more you do at home the more we can focus on getting you better with the manual work we do. There needs to be some responsibility taken on your end. When you don't do your HEP the chances of you recovering quickly are lessened.
Consider us your guides.
If you're doing what you need to do when you're away from the facility, we're able to take you to the next level. You've prepared yourself to get there.
Without the HEP the only time we can help you progress are the short hours you have at your scheduled sessions. The sessions then become about getting you ready for the next level instead of helping you breakthrough to the next level.
So remember to complete your HEP.
Ideally, three times a day is best. But we know time is scarce. This is why we create programs that focus on the key exercises that help get your body ready. This way it's easier for you to complete the programs when you're just about anywhere.
It's easiest to complete when you associate the HEP with something in your day.
For example:
When you wake up, do your stretches and foam roller. Before you go to bed, do your stretches and foam roller.
Just make sure you're doing your home exercise program. This way you can have all the hours in the week for what you'd rather be doing.
We wish you a happy holiday. Stay safe, healthy and injury-free.
To your health,
Jon, Pete and Michelle
If you have any questions please feel free to give us a call at the office (212) 317-8303.
