If you’ve ever felt tightness in your hamstrings, the typical advice you get from friends, family, and even well-meaning healthcare professionals is to stretch them. But if even your stretches just aren’t working – what then? You hear me say this a lot… but if you’re constantly stretching… or even foam rolling a tight or tense muscle… and nothing seems to change… then it’s time to start considering...
5 Tips to Treat Back Pain on your Own and Avoid Surgery Back pain impacts approximately 31 Million Americans at any given time, and our health care system spends $50 Billion per year on low back pain treatment. It’s the single leading cause of disability keeping people out of work, and it’s the second most common reason for doctor’s visits. Back pain is a big problem in this...
Back pain is the most common type of problem we see here in our office. And the number one question I get from people who’ve hurt their back is, “should I rest until it feels better?” The short answer is “no.” But I understand why this is confusing. It’s scary to move, or know which exercise is best when something hurts, especially if it’s your back. We also...
Is your knee pain actually due to a problem in your knee – or could it be caused by your lower back? One of the most important things to get right when it comes to successfully resolving knee pain is to correctly identify the source. And often times that source can be your lower back. One of the biggest clues that you’ve missed the root source of your...
Have you ever strained your hamstring but the pain just doesn’t go away? It’s been months since you first started hurting, you can’t actually remember how you injured it (it just started aching one day), you’ve been stretching and massaging it diligently, yet your hamstring still hurts. This happened to a recent client of ours (“Sandy”). Sandy was a runner and regular gym goer, who one day noticed...
One of the most confusing topics we deal with in our practice is pain. And there’s lots of advice out there on what to do about it… Should you rest or move? Apply heat or ice? See a doctor or let it go away on its own? Before you can even think about a solution to your pain, you must first accurately determine where it’s coming from. If...
The most popular goals for the New Year continue to revolve around weight loss and exercise. But here is one thing that can get in your way when pursuing those goals… unresolved back or knee pain. So many people make the mistake of thinking that exercise or weight loss alone, is going to “cure” their nagging pain. But that’s not always the case. Here are some top tips...
Approximately 500,000 Americans undergo back surgery to relieve their pain every year, and according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHTQ), this costs approximately $11 billion annually. The worst part — it turns out only 5 percent of these people actually need back surgery. And for many folks — the pain just ends up coming back. So why are we spending so much money on back...
Nobody likes a “pain in the butt.” But what do you do when you’re dealing with literal pain in your butt versus the figurative kind? It starts with figuring out where it’s coming from. Understanding the origin of your pain is necessary if you really want to solve it! One of our Pilates regulars (“Stacy”) has a story that illustrates this concept perfectly. Stacy had been doing all...
If you’ve ever felt tightness in your hamstrings, the typical advice you get from friends, family, and even well-meaning health and wellness professionals is to stretch them. Well… if it’s just your hamstring that’s actually tight then this might be good advice to follow. But what if it’s something else? If you accidentally stretch a hamstring that feels “tight” due to a back problem – there is a...
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Portsmouth, NH’s people-first physical therapy studio. We help active adults 40+ find the root cause of their pain and build a long-term plan to fix it, so they can get back to doing what they love most.
