The Mental & Physical Sides of Running: What Keeps Me Going
I don’t have to be the first to tell you that this has been a tough year for everyone emotionally, mentally and physically. Sticking to a healthy routine has never been more important. Throughout the last year, running has always been an outlet for me. Through tough, lonely, and cold days where it was an effort to even get out of the house, running has always put my mind and body at ease, providing stress relief and happiness, even if for a short period of time.
5 Strength Training Exercises for the Older Adult
A common misconception is that strength training is only beneficial for young adults. This is simply not true! Strengthening can be beneficial at any age; in fact there is no age limitation to gain strength. We know that muscle strength can be increased by progressive loads at any age. There is also evidence that suggests muscle strength can help with mobility, such as gait speed, and improving function for tasks, such as standing up from a chair. Increasing strength in the older population is beneficial to decrease risk of injury and has other health benefits as well.
8 Exercises to Help IT Band Pain
The IT band, or Illiotibial band, is connective tissue that runs along the lateral thigh from the hip to the outside of the tibia (shinbone), just below your knee. IT band pain occurs due to inflammation caused by friction between the IT band and thigh bone, often with repeated knee flexion and extension. This inflammation leads to pain on the outside of the knee, especially with repetitive use in running, walking, hiking and cycling.
4 Ways Exercise Can Boost Your Mental Health
As physical therapists, the physical component of health and wellness is easily understood and commonly discussed around injury prevention and rehabilitation. However, every day we treat patients that have also been affected by depression, anxiety, increased levels of stress, and low self-esteem due to injury and decreased functional ability. We strive to maintain a holistic approach to patient care and effectively serve the communities around us, remaining well acquainted with the benefits of exercise on mental health and wellness. Here are a few ways that exercise has been proven to boost our mental health.
How to Safely Return to Running after Physical Therapy
Congratulations! You graduated from physical therapy! Although you may have gone there feeling injured, you are now slowly returning to your normal, active self. As you finish your sessions, it is important to get clearance on returning to running. Your physical therapist can help you determine a realistic running goal to make sure the two of you are on the same page.
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3 Tips to Get Back Into Exercise
Routines are easy to stick to when they’re something you’re used to doing. When we fall out of our routines, it is much harder to get back into it versus staying the course and keeping the momentum going. Working fitness into a daily routine can be hard. For the most part, it’s an uncomfortable experience, especially if it’s not an activity that you particularly enjoy doing. Through my experience, I’ve seen three groups of people in regards to the experience of exercise:
4 Ways to Move More
The pandemic showed many of us that we had to get creative with our fitness outside of a gym or group workout setting. When gyms and fitness centers were closed, many people were left wondering what they were going to do to stay fit and keep working on their health. Many ingenious methods were created to combat this problem, and it helped open up a new realm of home fitness that I personally loved seeing. Fitness is an important part of our lives, or at least should be, and it’s vital to keep moving for both our mental and physical health. Even though restrictions for gym and fitness centers have lifted, I want to highlight some of my favorite ways to add in extra movements throughout the day to keep yourself physically fit.
3 Ways to Make Your Walk a Workout
Walking is a great activity to boost health, mood, and even keep you alive. It has even been coined “the 6th vital sign” as walking speed can correlate with functional ability, balance confidence, future health status, risk of hospitalization, discharge location, and mortality. To read further on other benefits of walking, see our previous blog on the 6 Health Benefits of Walking.
