5 Reasons to see a Physiotherapist

People often see a physiotherapist after they’ve sustained an injury, however, they often overlook the numerous benefits of physiotherapy for everyday issues such as posture, pain and flexibility. To help you understand how a session might help you, here are 5 reasons to see a physiotherapist.

Improve your posture

Many people underestimate the importance of posture to how they move, and more importantly, how they feel throughout the day. Sitting down with poor posture for a prolonged period of time each day can have a serious impact on your spine causing chronic pain in your neck, back and lower body. Similarly, if your job is physical, performing tasks with poor posture can lead to injury and more serious conditions, preventing you from performing at your peak.

Physiotherapy can help alleviate the impact of poor posture and identify which areas of your body need postural correction. Using a combination of stretches and strengthening exercises physiotherapy can re-balance your body and help you improve your posture throughout the day.

Alleviate pain and improve your flexibility

Pain throughout the body can come from any number of sources including sudden trauma, repetitive activities and poor posture. Physiotherapists can help identify the source of the pain and create a treatment plan for rehabilitating those areas of the body.

While often ignored by those that live more sedentary lifestyles, poor flexibility can also be linked to pain in areas of the body like the neck and lower back. This is because a sedentary lifestyle can cause the muscles to shorten, which in turn can cause pain. Physiotherapists can assess your flexibility and assist you in finding the right stretches to target the areas of your body that need improvement.

Improve injury recovery outcomes

Physical injury to the body can take a long time to heal. During this period of recovery, you might be limited to restricted activity, which in turn can cause your muscles to weaken, shorten and atrophy. Physiotherapy can help provide safe strengthening and flexibility exercises to help rehabilitate your body and reduce the chance of complications from deteriorating muscles.

Similarly, physical injury can affect your proprioception, which is your ability to sense the position of your own body and is vital to stability and movement. Physiotherapists are trained to help identify impaired proprioception and provide targeted exercises for recovering it.

Injury prevention

Even if your body appears to function correctly, with no great pain or weakness, there might still be underlying issues that can manifest as issues further down the line. Physiotherapists can look at factors such as imbalances in the strength of your muscles, stability and coordination, and help make improvements to your posture and movement. This is particularly important to those that work in fields that require peak performance and where injury can have a big impact on your ability to function.

Manage the impacts of an aging body

As the body ages, it naturally gets weaker and we start to lose our sense of balance. Physiotherapists can help adjust your exercise routine, ensure that your physical workouts are safe and target tissues such as muscle mass, bone density and joint pain.