PHYSICAL THERAPY
WHAT IS A PHYSICAL THERAPIST?
Physical Therapists are movement detectives. It is our job to assess how your muscles, joints, bones, nerves, ligaments, tendons, and fascia are working together to create your ability to move safely, effectively so you participate in your daily activities. We will hear your story about your symptoms and how they came about, assess your movement - whether it’s sitting in a chair, getting up from the ground, running, or doing a heavy deadlift! - and develop a plan to restore your function.
Once the therapist hears your story, we will take a deep look at not only what is causing your symptoms, but also what the deeper causes of those might be and then decide:
1. If you’re in the right office!
Many times people get bounced around from office to office, with a “try and hope” strategy. Anti-Fragile PT focuses on figuring out what might be the most helpful treatment strategy for you, EVEN IF THAT ISN’T PHYSICAL THERAPY. We hold ourselves to a high standard - we only want those in the office who have the opportunity to succeed, and if we think there are barriers or inconsistencies in your history, we will do our best to get you to someone that might be able to help or answer those questions.
2. What type of assessments will yield the most information
Strength, flexibility, sleep ergonomics, functional movement screens, video analysis, clinical tests of joints and other tissues, joint mobility, ergonomic assessment, shoewear checks - these are just a few of the places where we will start to seek the most relevant information on what you body is trying to tell you on why is it not operating at its highest potential.
3. Develop a hypothesis
We will take all those pieces and work to create a fully formed, testable hypothesis. We constantly dig deep, as movement experts and are therefore movement scientists. Working to collect information we can create a treatment structure that allows us to see if we’re as smart as we think we are, and based on that testing create a thoughtful plan for your time in physical therapy. Whether that’s just one or two sessions for a tune up or a lifelong connection to help optimize all parts of your movement system or manage a really persistent complaint.
4. Create a complete plan
We will NEVER treat you simply based on your MRI results, the opinion of another practitioner, an X-ray, Google search results, or a script. We will, however, ALWAYS take those things into consideration. You are a unique individual who will be assessed comprehensively, and your treatment plan will be bespoke. While protocols can apply in certain cases, there is always a place to consider your goals, history, and preferences into a complete plan of action you AND your therapists agree to. It will be progressive, understandable, and designed to meet YOUR needs, goals, and time constraints.
WHO CAN BENEFIT FROM PHYSICAL THERAPY?
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Anyone in pain (Acute or Chronic)
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Anyone looking to improve their ability to move
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Anyone looking to prevent injury
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Those wanting to avoid injections and surgery (or not let it be their only options)
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Anyone looking to improve balance and prevent falls
WHAT WE OFFER
Pre and Post Surgical Rehabilitation
Getting ready for surgery? We’d love to help you plan, strategize, and head into the procedure in optimal shape to streamline recovery. There is a plethora of evidence that shows that improve muscle function and reduced pain heading into surgery - knee, back, hip, shoulder - improved your ability to recover afterward. Don’t risk a less-than ideal outcome when our expert physical therapy team can tailor a plan just for you.
Chronic Injury Rehabilitation
So many people have histories - dislocations, fractures, surgeries, sprain, strains, disc bulges, et al, that we worked really hard to recover from. And we got there! Mostly. Except for every so often when that thing flares up again, but not NEARLY like it was a few years ago.
Or maybe you had that ACL reconstruction back in your 20s, and it has held up pretty well, except that you had to give up tennis. And all the other cutting sports. And you can’t sit on yours heels, but it was never THAT easy even once you recovered from the surgery, even after all the physical therapy you did afterward.
Got something that keeps popping up in your body that you just haven’t been able to figure out? Or maybe you’ve got an issue that you’ve gotten to a plateau and haven’t figured out how to get off of it? Give us a call and reach out.
Acute Injury Rehabilitation
Every member of the team at Anti-Fragile has a background in orthopedics and sports medicine, and have been involved in competitive sports since we were young, from track and cross country to baseball to swimming to mountain biking to ultimate frisbee. You name it, we’ve tried it. In addition, we’ve helped rehabilitate those injuries over and over, reducing the time it takes to get back to competition or daily activity.
Not an athlete, but woke up with a sore neck, or back seized up after working in the garden, or calves won’t stop cramping after doing a bit more ambitious hike last weekend? We’ve got you taken care of there, too. Give us a call and we will work to get you in the door so you can start feeling better ASAP. We even have Saturday hours, so you can take care of yourself, those you care about, AND your busy schedule.
HOW DOES ANTI-FRAGILE PHYSICAL THERAPY WORK?
The question is not WHAT hurts, but WHY it hurts.
Some answers are simple (fell down, stepped on rock), but many are not. They are a long standing variable (how frustrating to not be able to even predict WHEN you might have symptoms), and tend to respond less readily to the quick fixes that work for everyone else.
This is not exclusive to runners – jaw issues, headaches, spinal pain, tennis elbow, tendon injuries throughout the body – all can be issues related to UNDER stress throughout daily activities and consequent failure (fragility). Or due to OVER stress simply because your baseline to system failure is different or altered for any number of reasons.
We believe that the difference we offer is not the manual therapy we provide, our exercise selection, or our eye for analysis. We believe that each person deserves a personalized program to match their distinct needs. We apply these things to YOU in order to turn your problematic movement, pain, or activity choice into a stress that makes you bend, rather than break.
Fragile = Weakens under stress
Resilient = Returns to original state under stress
Anti-fragile = Gains from stress
Where do you want to be?