As a practicing physical therapist for over 20 years, I can’t look at someone and not notice their posture. It would be like trying to look at these words and not read them. I will involuntarily begin to analyze how they carry themselves and consider the reasons their body has adopted that...

You can’t pick up any health or fitness magazine these days without seeing an article about “strengthening your core”. Usually flanked by pictures of well-muscled models with washboard abs doing planks or sit-ups. The idea of the core has become so misappropriated in the media...

Marathon runners are less likely to have knee arthritis than the general population. That was the conclusion of a 2018 study in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery. Of the 675 distance runners studied, each with a minimum of 5 marathons completed, and a mean age of 48, arthritis was reported by...

All month long we have been discussing movement patterns, why we have them, why they are important, how they can lead to pain, and the process we go through when re-learning movement. Today I will discuss the 4 principles of teaching yourself how to move differently. Training yourself to move in...

Nearly every movement you make is driven by an underlying movement pattern that you have developed over the course of your lifetime. These patterns develop to make movements easier to coordinate and protect you from perceived vulnerabilities. From time to time these patterns can cause certain...

In my last post, I discussed the utility of movement patterns and how they help us navigate our lives. Today we’re going to talk about the dark side of movement patterns… when they lead to pain. I say that in jest because really there are no such things as good or bad ways to move....

Take your finger and touch your nose. Go ahead, actually do it before you read further. A simple enough task. I’m sure it didn’t take much thought at all. While you didn’t think twice about how to accomplish it, you actually could have performed it in any number of ways. Why did...

When it comes to healing not all parts of the body are equal. There are some tissues that heal fairly quickly like bones and skin and others very slowly or not at all, like nerves and cartilage. There are even some of the same tissues that have very different healing times. The medial collateral...

Anyone who has been dealing with joint pain for a while knows that the pain they feel is not consistent. Some days can be downright unbearable and then other days pretty good. My patients often wrack their brains trying to figure out what they did to cause a bad day. They blame some activity they...

In my office, we frequently take students from local universities to give them exposure to real-life clinical cases to complement their academic education. I was recently having a discussion with my student about a patient who has moderate to severe arthritis in her right knee. I asked him why he...

This is a question that I get asked with some regularity and like most answers, it depends. Deciding to undergo surgery is a huge and personal decision and depends on much more than just the condition of your joints. While these procedures are overwhelmingly safe and effective there are a number...

You went for the MRI because some joint has been hurting. Perhaps you have worsening knee pain as you go downstairs or some pain running down your leg or maybe your shoulder hurts when you reach overhead. Whatever the reason, you opted for an MRI to “see what’s going on” with...

Rarely does a day go by when I am not asked whether it's safe to exercises despite having arthritis. Like most things in healthcare, it is not such a cut and dry answer, but in most cases, the answer is YES, its not only safe but advisable. Many people and even some health care providers are...