exercise rehabilitation singapore

Importance of post injury exercise treatment

Exercise rehabilitation for sports injuries
Muscle functionality testing for client

What is exercise rehab?

Sports and exercise rehabilitation is an important part of treatment for people with injuries. It is a post injury treatment that covers a wide spectrum of people from athletes to sedentary population. Some common injuries are slipped disc, knee ACL torn, shoulder impingement or hip joint degeneration.

Yes, our body heals by itself without treatment but it might take a long time. Sometimes it might not heal properly, causing a lot of side effects such as muscle weakness, poor range of motion an pain.

Therefore a post injury plan and treatment is very important for injury to heal properly. Our Rehab Trainer specialises in assessing and managing musculoskeletal injuries. We uses a variety of techniques such as manual and exercise therapy. For manual therapy, we involve stretching, massage, joint manipulation and muscle mobilisation. Exercise therapy includes physiotherapy work involving strength and conditioning. As an exercise specialist, we must have the skills and knowledge to work with clients that have a wide range of medical issues.

At pt works we aim to:

  • improve functionality to return to normal day to day life
  • reduce pain (pain management)
  • help clients to return to their work life
  • help them to return to their sports

Why do we get injured so easily?

Sports injuries are common among athletes. Due to their competitive nature in sports, most sports injuries are caused by muscle overuse and trauma. Muscle rupture, ligaments tear and joint dislocation are common issues.

But many times, its usually the working class people that have issues with your body. These group of people are usually inactive, lacking of exercise. Inactive lifestyle is the main culprit of body pain and aches. Without enough movement, our joints and muscles get weak. We need stronger healthier muscles to support our weight and do daily chores. Remember, weak and stiff muscles get injured easily.

So what are the common injuries?

Some common pains are from the knee, lower back, upper back, neck, shoulder and hips. Let’s take knee pain as an example. One common pain issue is the runners knee. Overuse of the knee joint and stiff surrounding muscles causes inflammation in the joint, resulting in swelling and pain.

Another common health issues is lower back pain. In simple cases, its usually caused by muscle tightness and weakness. If pain is severe and radiates down your legs, a slipped disc might have occured. Spinal Slipped disc is also know as ruptured or degenerated disc. Other common pain issues include stiff neck and shoulder impingement.

There are 2 types of condition, chronic and acute. Chronic pain is caused by wear and tear of your joints or past injuries that is not completely healed. Acute pain are caused instantly by trauma. Both condition are treated differently. The protocols are totally different.

So how do we treat a strained or torn muscle? Hw long should the pain last? Whats the average recovery time? What are the signs of muscle injuries? At Pt works, our rehab therapist will give you a good answer.

Differences between Physiotherapy and Exercise therapy.

Its a question with a lot of different answers. For us, A physiotherapy session involves more hands-on manual work during the rehabilitation process. On the other hand, a physical exercise therapy session involves more exercise-based approach such as muscle strengthening and stretching. We should involve both approaches for a more effective recovery process.

Referrals from orthopaedic surgeons and doctors

Here at Pt works, we engage ourselves with both physiotherapy and physical therapy treatment. We often have referrals from surgeons and physiotherapists, for post injury rehab work. With our constant certification and knowledge upgrades, troubleshooting our clients injuries is our job.
You can call us pain specialist. We handle lots of clients with medical conditions. Training with extra care and being conservative is our main focus.

Heres what we do,

  • Managing pain
  • regaining mobility and function
  • returning to activity / sports

Suffering from constant pain from past injury is frustrating. Its always good to understand the different phases of treatment and what to expect during your recovery phase. Recovery is a long process depending on the severity of the injury. We always encourage our clients to do mental preparation before we proceed.

Here is our step by step plan for injury rehab, Phase 1- Documentation

  • we start off with clinical assessment of your medical condition and fitness level.
  • understand the cause of your injury and its history.
  • understand the related pathology of client’s medical conditions.
  • understanding the biomechanics and anatomy of the injured client together with the reading of the MRI scan if available. With MRI, the diagnosis can be accurate and fast. 
  • check client’s body respond to exercise.
  • Musculoskeletal screening using our manual manipulation technique to locate the pain and check for swelling.
  • perform several movement test to gauge the level of pain
  • Come out with a diagnosis report explaining the condition. Being able to fully understand the complexity of the condition and prescribe the treatment as soon as possible.
  • Fill in medical exercise administrative forms for conducting the sessions.

Phase 2- Basic exercises

  • Document a post injury training program that includes strength and conditioning , joint manipulation techniques, deep tissue massage and stretching exercises. 
  • If the injured location is swelling with redness, we will follow the RICE protocol. Which is Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation. At this stage no training shall be done, advised to rest till swelling subside.
  • Start the treatment program with basic exercises usually with resistance bands and light dumb bells.
  • Increase the resistance gradually to regain range of motion and improve neuromuscular activity.

Phase 3- Advance movement

  • start the advance exercise program.
  • functional training that involves advance exercises, movement and stability.
  • plyometric exercises such as jumping and skipping to regain power and speed.
  • make clients do sports specific exercise drills. Intensity will increase to improve muscle endurance, agility and response.
  • Stretching and manual deep tissue massage to breakdown scar tissues and improve flexibility.

Phase 4- Return to sports

  • making sure its 100% full recovery by doing certain testing by our specialist.
  • make sure proper warm up is done before doing any strenuous exercise or sports.
  • continue monitoring the injured area and return to us if necessary

After the completion of the whole rehab treatment, we will make sure that our clients do a weekly strength and conditioning session with us. This is to make sure they don’t get muscle or joint stiffness. We make sure there is no side effects from the recovery.

Below are some of the things we cover in our program.

Functional training to speed up injury recovery

Personal training for functional exercises for core strength.

In ptworks, we are functional exercise specialist . Constant upgrading of our knowledge with certification and upgrades makes us keep up with fitness trend.

We don’t do Boring and dull exercising programs. Here, we believe in connecting our mind and body as a whole. Constantly working on the neuromuscular activity during the workout.

Helping clients to fire up sleeping muscles and connecting them all together. It’s not how big your muscles is , it’s how well they are connected, activated and firing at the same time.

Along the way, u will definitely perform better in your sports.

We focus on functional movements and motor skills. All these makes the training more engaging and fun.

Fundamental basic skills and advance movements makes up the full package.
That’s the trick we use!

Flexibility training

Ptworks rehab program focus a lot on joint flexibility and range of motion. Muscles often gets stiff and tight due to our inactive lifestyle and stress. Overtraining and muscle fatigue also causes muscle stiffness.

At Ptworks, we uses several techniques to improve flexibility. Below are the techniques we use to improve flexibility.

  • Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF)
  • Static passive stretching
  • Active stretching
  • ballistic and dynamic stretch methods
  • Active Isolated stretching (AIS)- very effective muscle release technique that also works on strengthening.
  • isometric

These are included in every personal training session to ensure our clients feel good after their workout. It helps in muscle recovery and reduce muscle fatigue.

Remember, having a pain free and healthy muscles is what we focus in.

Sustainability is the key in fitness!!!!