Meaningful work that provides a consumer with the desired product requires time and energy. The constant attention to detail makes all the difference.

Less is more. Finding the right exercise and feeling the right sensations takes time and concentrated effort. The effort is focused and intentional. Anything more is noise to the system and a reduction in the desired effects.

The cookbook approach to physical therapy is rampant, and often cited as a systematic way of treating patients effectively. Every patient with a diagnosis is run through a machine, where their symptoms are plugged in to an algorithm and the output is a treatment strategy. This can work if you are a health care provider that behaves more like a cook, a valuable part of the team that requires a recipe which does not change, regardless of a patron’s taste.

Your neck is no different from any other part of your body, it relies heavily on other regions to create the motion you desire. It is often an area in which people develop pain, and that may be due to it being the site of focal loading.

Physical therapy is not for everyone. It insists on a growth mindset and diligent effort to alter your movement habits. The investment of time is real, and the potential return on that investment is effective strategies to manage your own physical health.

I remember when I was first learning to drive, my grandpa explained to me the difference between slamming on the brakes and applying them. The lesson was on how to avoid sliding across the icy road, but it also comes into play in my work with patients.

There needs to be guiding principles, measurements that can be superimposed on those principles and strategies utilized to align the principles with the measurements.

My work as a physical therapist centers around teaching clients new movement strategies. It often begins with me using my hands to induce a new sensation that opens up the potential for additional options, or options that have been forgotten. Then the coaching begins.

Many activities programmed in a typical training session involve both the arms or legs acting together and moving in the same direction. This is counter to our architecture.

In my work as a physical therapist, I spend a great deal of time with my patients reconstituting the plastic capabilities of their body. Once tissues regain their ability to alter their shape, store energy and effortlessly apply it to a desired situation, pain tends to diminish.

One of my mentors uses the analogy of standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon. You are peering right over that massive cliff wall with nothing between you and the bottom but air. You have effectively locked your ankles into one solid object, limiting motion so that you do not fall to the bottom.

In the case of movement, we are talking about a complex thing. We all make it look fairly simple, and the rules of it are simple, but the ways it is created and produced are anything but simple. When I work with patients, one of the first things we begin to develop is a common language. A vocabulary that we can use to communicate our interpretation of the movement issue.

One of the more notable behaviors I demonstrate with my clients is that I am consumed in my desire to help them. During an hour-long session, solving that problem is the only thing on my mind. We are going to battle together, we both have skin in the game, and we are going to work at solving this problem.

Depending on the duration of symptoms, both the painful experience and the psychological warfare can become intertwined and leave the patient feeling hopeless. One of the most powerful tools in these cases is the understanding that there is no one to blame. It is no one’s fault that pain is present. In my line of work, pain is simply an outcome.

Your genetic make up and your environment interact in all circumstances, leading to small changes over time. Healthy, active tissues regain their capabilities more readily post-injury.

We are all under pressure to get things done, we take short cuts sometimes to be more efficient. If that becomes the norm, compensations are now our primary strategy, and we begin to sacrifice the efficiency we sought in the first place.

Many of us want to get out there and take on the day, work hard and accomplish things. This is admirable, and requires a high level of output. Make sure to provide yourself with the required input to maintain the energy levels needed to thrive in the work you want to do.

We all have a certain amount of potential, and with a good coach we can fully realize our capabilities. As a physical therapist I take it upon myself to coach patients through their recovery, and we work together to tap into that unrealized ability.

We all develop strategies for moving within the world, and when those strategies work for long enough, they become subconscious. Only when we are unable to utilize that strategy does something grab our attention.