What is shoulder impingement, and how can you fix it without surgery?
Shoulder impingement is one of the most common shoulder problems that we treat with physical therapy at EVOLVE Flagstaff. But, this is a commonly misunderstood term, and we often see patients who have seen multiple providers without resolution of their pain.
We have helped many patients resolve their shoulder pain by following a framework that ensures we don’t get caught in these common mistakes. The framework ensures that we don’t miss anything, but can still individualize our plan of care to you and your specific injury
EVOLVE Strong March Programming
We are starting a new cycle this week that will have a bit more and different organization than the past few months. The block will be 6 weeks rather than 1 month. Overall there will be a similar amount of variation as we typically have, but I’m hoping you’ll notice more progress with this organizational structure. I’ll be training alongside you (I aim to do the Monday/Wednesday/Friday workouts each week)… should be fun!
When “Healthy” Goes Too Far: Meet Orthorexia
Let’s begin with a little game of association here. When you hear the word healthy, what comes to your mind?
Images or phrases such as gluten-free, juice cleanse, abs, dairy-free, paleo, keto, whole30, dewy skin, and ________ [insert any other #trendingnow idea] may have come to mind. As you can see, the term “healthy” is pretty loaded these days.
Why You Need To Eat More... Not Less
Humans have been evolving for thousands of years, and in order to have made it this far, our bodies have adapted to a variety of situations. We have survived famines, plagues, pandemics, and periods of famine. Each and every one of these scenarios has forced our bodies and physiology to adapt and change in order to survive. Our body has learned how to live on minimal energy (calories), through nutrient deficits, and times of poor sanitation.
Just because we have survived, this does not mean that we have thrived.
Guidelines for Navigating Pain During Physical Therapy
Pain can be confusing during the rehabilitation process, especially if you have seen other providers. There are some providers who preach “no pain no gain,” and some physical therapists even take pride in pushing their patients to the brink of their pain tolerance.
That’s not how we do things at EVOLVE Flagstaff. In general, we want to reduce pain, and we want the recovery process to be comfortable, encouraging, and perhaps even exciting as you see improvement. For most injuries, pushing into pain simply doesn’t make logical sense. If you have a bruise, even if you want to push on it, you know that you are not doing yourself any favors by constantly poking it. The same is true for most injuries.
The importance of triggers in injury recovery
At EVOLVE Flagstaff, one of the most important but often under-appreciated concepts that we review with every physical therapy patient is what we call “Pain Triggers.” Pain triggers are movements, positions, or activities that place force or load on a painful or injured body structure.