Exercise Therapy

With recent advances in neuroscience, it is now commonly recognised that pain and dysfunction cause an inhibition of important stabilising muscles around the muscular system. This means these important muscles become “sleepy” and reduce their ability to work optimally. This happens in your brain when it senses pain, and is thought to be a protective subconscious neurological mechanism. Associated with this, it is also common for pain to cause muscle over-activity or “spasm” in other muscles. This is thought to be a compensation for the muscles which have become “sleepy”.

What does Exercise Therapy treat?

Most of our patients who see us are in pain, and along with this pain, we identify muscle imbalances due to the neurophysiology mentioned above. A common example is patients describing really tight/sore hip flexors ( these muscles live in the front of the hip). However, when we assess them, not only do we notice the extremely tight hip flexors, but also the corresponding deeper core muscle ( gluteus medius/minimus) which has become “sleepy” or even wasted ( which the patient was unaware of).

Here at Active Physiotherapy Newtown and Darlinghurst, we are experts at identifying which muscles are working at an optimal level for you, which are weak and which are too strong. We have literally thousands of exercises in our clinic database that we can call upon to allow you to reach an enduring return to function and pain free living.

How we treat muscle pains

The exercises we provide for you are the very best evidence based exercises that will get you moving sooner. We will give you only the ones you need, and not a whole sheet of 20 things to do. We understand our clients lead busy lives, and so we’ll aim to fill in any “strength holes” you have with targeted, bespoke exercises especially for you. As you improve, we’ll also review your exercise program and ensure it is challenging you, your brain and your muscles to keep you improving.

In addition, at our Newtown clinic we have a full strength gym, to take you through your exercises in a safe, supervised way. This allows you to try loading up with your physio guiding you. We also have a open Yoga/Pilates space with mirrors so you and your therapist can watch your movements and ensure they are optimal. Each of our treatment rooms also has mirrors, and we routinely demonstrate and check your exercises in our private treatment rooms as well.

In order to see your deeper core muscles working ( or not), we have in-house ultrasound imaging equipment which allows us to identify whether your deeper core muscles are firing optimally or not. Please ask your therapist for more details.