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Happy first day of Spring! The sun is finally out, and the temperatures are (mostly) above freezing! It’s time to start thinking about making the most of the longer daylight and enjoying the sun and warmer weather by exercising outside!   Whether it’s in your neighborhood, at the park, or just in your yard or on your patio, there are lots of exercises you can try outside:
Invite a friend to your outdoor workout, or find a group that does outdoor activities together! This makes it more fun and keeps you accountable to your workouts. As you begin to exercise outside this spring, don’t forget to warm-up, especially with the temps still being cold. Your warm up can be just a few minutes long, inside or outside, and should focus on getting your heart rate up and should include dynamic stretching. Here are a few warm up exercises/dynamic stretches to try: 1. Leg swings - 10 reps on each side, to stretch the front and back of your hip and leg; hold something for balance if needed  2. Forward march with knee-to-chest stretch - 10 reps on each leg, to stretch your hip and groin  3. Walking quad stretch - 10 reps on each side to stretch the front of your leg and hip  Let us know your favorite outdoor exercise in the comments! As always, if you have a nagging injury keeping you from exercise, call us to set up a physical therapy evaluation: 616-662-0990.  By: Lisa Bartz, C-EP (Cert. Exercise Physiologist)
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We get a lot of questions about the difference between physical and occupational therapy, many people think they are the same thing but actually they are very different! Physical Therapy is the treatment of disease, injury, or deformity by physical methods such as exercise (strengthening, stretching, neuromuscular training, etc), hands-on treatment, massage, and other modalities (heat, electrical stimulation), rather than by drugs or surgery. Occupational Therapy: a form of therapy for those recuperating from physical or mental illness that encourages rehabilitation through the performance of activities required in daily life. To put it very simply, physical therapy is getting you back from an injury or surgery, occupational therapy is learning or relearning to perform daily tasks efficiently. We focus on physical therapy here and have three physical therapists here that have over 20 years of experience each and specialize in many different areas, including back, neck, knee and shoulder injury or post-operative rehab. In January we added an occupational therapist, Laurie, to our team, and we are excited to accept new patients for occupational therapy. Although PT and OT are very different, they do overlap in many areas: • Teach people how to prevent and avoid injuries • Both educate people about the healing process • Both assist people with improving their ability to perform daily activities through training and education Call us or your doctor if you have questions regarding which is right for you!  By: Becca Popma |
AuthorsSteve Bartz, PT Categories
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