Knee pain is one of the most common symptoms with running and accounts for about half of running-related injuries. If you are a runner who is experiencing knee symptoms or you are a runner who wants to prevent future injuries, there are several ways you can reduce impact or load on the knee joint. One of the most common causes of movement impairment in running is lack of control or strength of the hip extensors, which can ultimately lead to knee pain.
Even with ligamentous and muscular support in place, the hip is a common area that is susceptible to pain and irritation. While there is no singular explanation for hip pain aside from direct trauma, we can point to a myriad of different causes associated with pain, such as faulty movement patterns, imbalances within the body due to underlying muscle weaknesses, or abnormal joint motion within the hip or neighboring areas of the body, such as the low back.
We at Thrive are so fortune to collaborate with many types of rehabilitation, exercise, and movement specialists in the New York City area. Pilates has long been one of our staff’s preferred exercise tools, and we dearly love and appreciate the expertise of the staff at Mongoose Bodyworks, a Pilates studio that is neighbor to our clinic here in Soho. Over the years we have found our mutual clients achieve more success in movement, return to activity, and engagement in life when we collaborate, and the conversation below is an edited version of a dialogue between Mongoose Bodyworks owner Halle Clarke and Thrive PT staffer Elizabeth D’Annunzio Shah. Halle: Hi! When we decided to have a conversation, we talked about many areas of professional overlap. There’s lots of crossover between what you and I do! Elizabeth: That’s right. Ultimately, both PTs and Pilates instructors spend a fair amount of time doing movement analysis. We’re both trying to enable multi-dimensional, pain free movement. Halle: In the spirit of that crossover, I have some questions for you that I thought might relate to both of our client populations. Specifically, let’s talk about breathing. How do you think about breathing as it […]
Personalized Blood Flow Restriction (BFR) Rehabilitation is a type of Physical Therapy treatment that integrates the use of a personalized tourniquet system to restrict blood flow to an injured limb during active recovery training. Often, after an injury or surgery, a patient does not have the ability to lift heavy weights/loads thereby slowing down their overall recovery. Studies find BFR rehabilitation allows the patient to begin strength training using lesser weights/loads that won’t stress their joints or soft tissues, while still being able to gain the muscle strength, hypertrophy and endurance comparable to that of a heavy load lifting program. (Slysz et al 2015) While initially used in the treatment and recovery of service members who were wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is now being used with the training and rehabilitation of elite athletes and in orthopedic clinical settings. Clinical trials have shown advancement in the rehabilitation of total knee replacements, wrist fractures, tendinopathies, cartilage injuries and chronic weakness after surgery. This technique is particularly successful in assisting injured and/or post-surgical patients who are struggling with muscle mass loss and weakness. When a limb is injured, it cannot tolerate the heavy lifting necessary to prevent and reverse the loss […]
The CNN segment that we filmed at Thrive a few months back is now online. Have a watch as practice owner Tamar Amitay, PT, MS and physical therapist Amy McGorry, PT, DPT, MTC, talk about and demonstrate manual therapy techniques on a patient. Here at Thrive Integrated Physical Therapy, PC, our physical therapists identify the faulty mechanics and movement patterns that contribute to and drive one’s pain. We’ve found that manual therapy coupled with an appropriate therapeutic exercise program really makes a difference. At Thrive we look for the root cause as well as underlying movement dysfunctions to base our interventions. We are dedicated to getting our patients back quickly in the game of life!
We at Thrive are ready to help meet the needs of pre and postpartum women and are launching a comprehensive rehabilitation and wellness program. We are looking forward to helping women stay strong and pain free during pregnancy, maintain safe exercise practices pre and post birth, and rehabilitate from injury. Our services will include a full musculoskeletal evaluation and examination for a wide variety of issues relevant to women.
When the winter Olympics showcases Curling there’s always an uptick of interest in the sport. Being married to a US Senior National Curling Champion, I’m always intrigued, and have considered trying it, but I don’t want to (literally) hit the ice. Although Curing can appear sort of silly, with all that sweeping of the ice, it’s actually QUITE physically and mentally challenging. It’s literally a game of “chess on ice,” both brawn and brain are required for a successful outcome! On top of strategy and teamwork, you need strength, cardiovascular endurance, balance and flexibility to successfully compete. First, a little about the game: There are 2 teams of 4 players or in the newer mixed doubles game, 2 players, that “deliver” or slide a 42lb granite stone across a sheet of ice toward a circular target of concentric circles dubbed “the house.” Points are scored for getting these rocks closest to the house’s center with both teams throwing stones in “ends” which are similar to baseball innings. Each game consists of 8-10 ends. Each team throws their stones trying to get as many rocks into the center while knocking their opponents rocks out, similar to shuffleboard. But why do they […]
Winter is here and we have finally had our first real snow! With more snow on the horizon in the next few months, more and more people will be hitting the slopes and snowboarding. While it’s great to head out there and have fun, it’s equally as important to do some activities that prepare you for the challenges associated with snowboarding to limit your risk of injury. Whether you’ve been snowboarding forever or this is your first time, a good routine will help keep you on the slopes enjoying winter longer. In this post, New York City based Physical Therapist Philippe Corbanese, PT, DPT, will go over a warm-up routine that will target the most commonly used muscles in the sport. When snowboarding, the most commonly engaged muscles are your core, quads, calves and shins. You need to be able to get up from low surfaces, rock back and forth, rotate from your core, and get up from a forward and a backward position. The following is a list of the exercises Philippe would recommend as a warm-up routine to be performed prior to heading out. These exercises do not need to be performed in the order listed. And, as […]
This week, on our Instagram, we followed along as Thrive PT Elizabeth D’Annunzio Shah, PT, DPT, OCS, MTC evaluated and treated our aide Katie in our SoHo clinic. Katie is a dancer and presents with hip pain when in the squat or single leg stance positions. We have assembled the Instagram story here for you so you can follow the journey from beginning to end and get a little behind the scenes look at what a physical therapy session is all about. Evaluations at Thrive are different for each patient, but always begin with an analysis of movement as related to the individual’s specific complaints. Below, her PT Elizabeth is observing her move, palpating the joint, and deciding what to look at next! A post shared by Thrive Integrated PT (@thriveptnyc) on Apr 18, 2017 at 7:59am PDT While dancing, Katie spends a lot of time in single leg stance. In an effort to understand her right hip pain, Elizabeth looks at her in single leg stance, both with the right foot moving and right foot down. She progresses from this parallel stance posture to single leg stance in first position. It’s always necessary to look at the positions important […]
With all the media hype about Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton’s walking pneumonia, I felt the need to discuss how breathing, and our ribs, affect certain movements and even our speech! When reported recently that Hillary Clinton was suffering from walking pneumonia, I had many patients asking me what it was, and how it affected the candidate. Walking pneumonia typically occurs as a result of a lung infection from a bacterial microorganism called Mycoplasma pneumoniae, and of all the types of pneumonia one can contract, it is the least worrisome. Quite often, people who have walking pneumonia don’t even realize they have it and feel like they just have a bad cold. They are rarely bedridden and are able to continue their daily activities feeling a bit “under the weather. This conversation brings up the topic of breathing, however, and when we think about the act of breathing, it’s important to note the correlation between our ribs and taking a breath. Healthy rib movement is essential, not only for breathing, but for everyday movements such as lifting your arms overhead, or twisting. When an illness like pneumonia, or bronchitis, causes coughing or shallow breathing, the muscles surrounding our chest get […]