I’m a physical therapist and I LOVE what I do. I love teaching people about their bodies. I love educating and instructing in proper exercise performance. I love educating on injuries, how to prevent them and how to recover from them. I love it all! I am also the first to admit that, despite how great it all is, when it comes down to the nuts and bolts of rehabbing from an injury or surgery, PT IS BORING! The actual application of all the knowledge bombs I drop, the actual performing of the prescribed exercises, the time commitment, is boring/tedious/monotonous…whatever adjective that you want to use! At the end of the day, doing your physical therapy exercises tends to be the last thing you want to do. I understand. I have been there and am CURRENTLY there. For the most part, I know what to do whenever an ache or pain pops up, but I still struggle to do my exercises day in and day out. Why? Because I would much rather be doing almost anything else than doing my boring PT exercises. 

Time to do my exercises. I get down on the ground to start my, what feels like millionth, clamshell exercises and suddenly I notice that the baseboards urgently need to be wiped down! I walk to my closet to grab my foam roller and, oh my, I MUST sort through my clothes and make a donation to Goodwill ASAP. I stand at a window to do my hip abductions and wow, my entryway is in desperate need of sweeping….you get the picture. It is amazing how chores that I typically despise doing suddenly become a labor of love when it is time to do my exercises. 

My entire profession is based on exercise and movement modification for pain reduction, injury recovery, and injury prevention. Unfortunately, most of the time, those exercises and movement modifications are monotonous and we “fall off the wagon”. My advice: DON’T! Do whatever you need to do in order to stick to your physical therapist prescribed exercises. They DO work, but it will require you to be committed to them. Find a way to make them a habit and stick to it. Side note: Atomic Habits is a fabulous book about, you guessed it, habits. If you are curious about how we make new habits or break bad ones, give it a read! One suggestion from Atomic Habits, for when you are trying to build a new habit, is to attach the new habit to a pre-existing habit. For example, if one of your exercises is heel raises, try doing your heel raises while brushing your teeth (if brushing your teeth is already a tried and true habit…which hopefully it is haha). 

I can’t stress enough how important doing your physical therapy exercises actually is! In addition to my three and a half years of graduate school education, anecdotally I know that doing your home exercise program WORKS. I have a labrum tear in my right hip which was confirmed via MRI eight years ago. Luckily, thus far my pain and dysfunction from the tear have not gotten severe enough for me to pursue surgery. However, I have had bouts of pain from the tear which sidelined me from running for weeks and sometimes months at a time. The times that my pain resurfaced were, without a doubt, the times that I was less focused on my rehab exercises. More recently in my life I have gone over a year without a flare up! That year included earning a Black Shirt in the Dipsea, finishing 4th female at the Waldo 100k, finishing 1st female at the 2022 Labor Day Tam Climb race, finishing 3rd female at the Solomon Women’s Trail 1/2 Marathon, three Ride&Ties, on 50-mile endurance horseback ride, weekly track workouts, and countless Wednesday morning SFRC group runs to the top of Mt. Tam…to name a few of my activities I’ve been involved in :) 

This past year has been filled with miles and miles of exciting exercise that in the past, would have caused me to have increased hip pain and forced me to dial it back. What makes this year different? A lot of things of course! I would not be being true to my ethics if I were to say that doing my PT exercises were the sole reason why I have not had issues with my hip. However, I know, without a doubt, that I have been much more dedicated to my rehab exercises than I have ever been. For over a year now I have consistently done my home exercise program at a minimum of three times per week and I know that that consistency, in the face of boredom and monotony, has made a difference in my ability to run further and faster than ever! 

Do your rehab exercises folks! They do work. They take time and consistency. You will NOT see overnight results. You WILL have days where you think it is a waste of your time. You WILL get bored. But, it will be worth it and at the very least, you will get stronger! 💪🏼