Imagine a tennis serve. The player tosses the ball with one hand and hits it with a racket held in the other.
The physical demands of this motion seem pretty straightforward, yet this task requires a tremendous amount of coordination to get the ball across the net. A proper serve requires flexibility, strength, and power of the whole body working together paired with exact timing.
The same holds true with any other functional movement, from shooting a basketball to lifting our kids or grandkids. Our bodies are uniquely designed with interrelated muscle groups, joints, and fascia systems that work collaboratively to help us interact with our world in a meaningful way.
Parts Make a Whole
When part of our intricate system is not performing optimally, due to injury, weakness, or limited mobility, the causes and effects are not in isolation.
Pain experienced in one part of the body likely has restrictions in other parts of the body, contributing to overall dysfunction. Two examples of this are pain in the hip and lower back:
- Lower back pain: May be impacted by mid-back mobility, the position of the pelvis, hip strength, foot mechanics and functional movement patterns required for walking, bending, squatting and lifting.
- Hip weakness: Commonly associated with issues at the knee, including osteoarthritis, patellofemoral pain syndrome, and plantar fasciitis.
Bodies frequently demonstrate motor control changes with injury. This is often seen in altered movement strategies at the hip and ankle when the thigh muscle is inhibited due to swelling and pain at the knee following surgery or in altered core muscle control in patients with lower back pain.
The Best Kind of Assessment
Just as our shoulders, hips, and knees don’t move in isolation, neither should physical therapy narrowly focus your rehabilitation on one area. That’s why it’s important to seek a physical therapist that will look not just at the site of your pain but will assess above and below to find other potential contributing causes to your symptoms.
Your PT should perform a whole body movement assessment to detect patterns of dysfunction.
Why Choose SetPT?
At SET physical therapy, we’re experts at how the body works as a unit and know exactly how one region of the body can impact another. We provide a full hour of our attention, not only to address the impairments within the immediate area of your pain but also to look at other contributing areas and the quality of functional movements.
If you’re experiencing nagging pain or injury keeping you from your usual activities, schedule an appointment with your local SetPT therapist and get back to the things that are important to you.
