How Rehabilitative Exercise Makes You Stronger

Weakness in your body shows in many different ways. It could be from chronic pain from a variety of conditions, or through an injury you sustained from physical activity. Either way, strengthening your body through rehabilitative exercise is imperative to overcoming an injury or chronic condition.

At Pinnacle Health Chiropractic, our team is skilled in all kinds of care, including rehabilitative exercise. Dr. Jason Ablett is our skilled chiropractor who helps get you back on your feet and back to your normal activities through a variety of treatments.

What is rehabilitative exercise?

Rehabilitative exercise is a form of treatment that’s used after you suffer an injury that threatens your ability to perform daily tasks. It’s similar to physical therapy, but focuses more on exercises to help you strengthen your body and recover.

Rehabilitative exercise has so many benefits to your body, especially when used in conjunction with other forms of therapy. Some of the ways rehabilitative exercise can help you include:

• Decreased pain
• Flexibility
• Joint mobility
• Increased strength

So how do you know if you’ll benefit from this form of treatment? As long as you’re willing to put in the work, your body will likely experience some kind of improvement after exercise therapy. Whether it’s regaining strength after being hurt, or improving flexibility after surgery, this form of treatment is very versatile. Other conditions that can benefit from rehabilitative exercise include:

• Fibromyalgia
• Arthritis
• Chronic pain
• Skeletal problems

Other medical conditions like stroke or heart attack can also benefit from the healing effects of exercise therapy. However, one of the main goals of this therapy is to regain overall muscle strength. 

How it makes your body stronger

No matter the reason you’re undergoing rehabilitative exercise, there’s one main goal in mind — to get you back to doing your normal activities. So how is this achieved? 

When your body sustains an injury, you feel pain because your body is protecting the part of your body that’s injured from sustaining more damage. This usually leads to decreased use of the injured area, which over time can lead to weakness and decreased mobility. 

This is where rehabilitative exercise comes in to save the day. Although not a quick fix, this form of treatment does help to speed up your recovery by challenging your body to get stronger every day through a variety of methods, such as:

• Stretching
• Exercise plans
• Chiropractic care
• Weight training

Dr. Ablett uses all these forms of treatment to help you regain muscle and flexibility that was decreased due to your injury. 

Rehabilitative exercise helps to strengthen your body by reducing pain and swelling in the injured area, along with regaining movement and range of motion. This is achieved by using weights and slowly building up repetitions week by week until you regain your strength. Other exercises that Dr. Ablett may have you perform include:

• Pelvic tilts
• Pendulum exercises
• Hamstring curl
• Adductor squeeze
• Step ups

Dr. Ablett usually has you come to the office a few times a week to start for therapy sessions. After performing an assessment to ascertain the severity of your injury, he then puts a plan together that best suits your specific time frame and type of injury.

You may begin to notice a difference in your overall strength and flexibility within the first few weeks of your exercise program. However, you might not get the full benefits for a month or two after you start your program.

If you’re considering rehabilitative exercise, call to schedule a diagnostic evaluation with Dr. Ablett online or by calling Pinnacle Health Chiropractic today.