 Have you ever been concerned after doing your chest workout, that you injured yourself, because of the amount of soreness that you were feeling? This video is great for you. My name is Dr. Molly. And I'm with Your Goals Physical Therapy. I've had two people come up to me after having a particularly good chest day, with some rather acute symptoms that had them very, very worried.
The first person came up and stated, “ I don't understand. It's just so tender right where the chest muscle hits my sternum and I don't understand why. I didn't do anything unusual. I did have a really good chest day, just a couple days ago, but ever since then, it really hurts to touch. And I'm very concerned that I might pull the muscle or something worse. Like, can you just tell me if there's a tumor?” And I know that that sounds extreme if you're just listening to this video, but if you've been working out and you haven't changed anything then all of a sudden you wake up and there's an area that is inflamed,that's irritated that really hurts to touch. Your mind goes crazy. Lots of people start to think horrible things. They think they broke something. They think they tore their pec muscle. It Is just alarming. And then if you can't figure any of that out, then your brain, especially if you Google something, you always end up with cancer as the answer. When I saw this person who actually works in the gym that I work out of, I was able to ask, very quickly, some question that calmed him down immediately.
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 Are you suffering from shoulder pain while you're doing planks? This video is perfect for you. So my name is Dr. Molly, and I'm with Your Goals Physical Therapy, I have recently had a few people come in because they were having pain doing planks. And of course their goal wasn't necessarily to do planks just for an everyday workout, just for a little bit. It's so that they can train to run. In one case, somebody else is trying to power lift and so being able to do a plank with their sport is very important to them. It helps train everything in your upper body and your torso to stay nice and stiff so that you can either run or lift the weights that you wanna lift. Having their shoulders bother them was freaking them out and was very disappointing. It really felt like it was a huge setback for them. They came in asking for any kind of tip or anything that I could give them to do so that their shoulder would stop hurting during what they think of as a basic exercise.
 Hi, I'm Dr. Molly with Your Goals Physical Therapy, hamstring pulls have got to be one of the most frustrating injuries out there. Not that all injuries aren't obnoxious, but it always feels like you pull your hamstring when you hit your stride running. You finally get this good pace going, you know, you're going to beat your prior time for what you're doing that day. And bam, one of your hamstrings, you just feel it pull and now you're walking the rest of the way. Or you're like the guy that I saw at the USA powerlifting meet the other day. He was getting set up to pull 700 pounds, which is why I was paying attention, because that seemed very shocking to me. I was like, whew, 700 pounds. I got to see this. I got to see somebody be able to lift that.
That's impressive. Anybody who's willing to train that hard and for that long is very, very impressive. And so I see him, he gets ready. He gets into his stance. He bends down to pick up the bar and all of a sudden you just see it. He grabs the back of his leg and hops up. (I'm not sure, but there may have been some adult language.) He takes off his lifting belt and he's off the platform there and he never returns. You see him the rest of the time at the meet he's limping. It's very obvious that he injured his hamstring, just getting down into that position. I figured let's talk about how we handle hamstring strains or hamstring pulls, pardon me. That can happen only once, if you're scouring the earth right now, because you just pulled your hamstring and it's never happened before. Or maybe you're falling across this, because you pull your hamstring all the time and you're wondering why.  Hi, I'm Dr. Molly with Your Goals Physical Therapy, have you ever reached to grab for something and felt a pop in your finger? And been freaked out by that pop; then this video is perfect for you. Maria called me right around Thanksgiving with that exact same problem. Maria was getting ready for Thanksgiving when she walked by the eggnog aisle. And she was like, “Well, thank you. Yes, I will. I will have some eggnog while I'm preparing Thanksgiving dinner.” She knew that she was going to be chopping and mixing and whatever all day. So she was like, “An eggnog drink sounds great!” But when she went to grab the carton out of the freezer, she felt a pop, it wasn’t a sharp pop but it was a very definitive pop in her finger and it freaked her out
 Hi, I'm Dr. Molly with Your Goals Physical Therapy. Let's talk about carpal tunnel. Carpal tunnel is so common, especially for moms. And if you've just had a kid it’s also common to get carpal tunnel while you're pregnant, but it’s common just from holding your child that you get carpal tunnel. In my case my daughter, after she was born, just loved to be carried. She didn't really like to be put down for any length of time. And so you just spend a whole lot of time caring and of course, you're kind of curled in this position. You're trying to make sure that they're comfortable and you're doing a whole lot of this right. All day. And after a while, I noticed that, you know, my wrist would be a little bit sore and achy. My elbow was getting sore and because you're not sleeping a whole lot, there's not a lot of thought. You just know that you need to take care of your baby. And then that's what you're doing. But when I started to try to reach for things and I was uncoordinated, I would drop things because I didn't really have as good a grip as I thought I did. And then the numbness came and then after the numbness came, the realization that I am giving myself a carpal tunnel on my left side.
 Hi, I’m Dr. Molly with Your Goals Physical Therapy. I had somebody stop me the other day and asked me what’s kind of a funny question. But it was very serious for her. She asked me why she walked like a duck and she demonstrated. She walked with her feet turned out. I obviously kind of chuckled because it's a funny way of asking why I walk a certain way. And she was kind of trying to brush it off too. Like, yeah, my kids are kind of messing with me a little bit about how my feet are always turned out. Then she said, I'm secretly a little afraid that they think I look funny or that I look odd when I'm walking. After talking to her for a little bit, there was a little bit more to that.
 Hi, I'm Dr. Molly with Your Goals Physical Therapy. Let's talk about how you properly stretch your Pecs. Most people are familiar with that stretch where you put both arms through the door and then pull through. But one of the things that I've noticed over the years is that there are a few things that are done wrong consistently. So I thought I would go over those things.
Hi, I'm Dr. Molly with Your Goals Physical Therapy. I speak to hundreds of people every month and a common theme is that people don't like to, or don't do squats because they feel that their knees are bad, meaning their knees hurt while they're doing squats. This is very alarming because squats are very important. So I thought I would go over and explain one, why your knees hurt while you're squatting. Then two, why it's important to work on getting through that pain, like figuring out what's causing the pain and then getting to where squats are not painful.
Hi, I'm Dr. Molly with Your Goals Physical Therapy. The other day, I was at the gym that I work out of, and I overheard a conversation between a personal trainer and their client. It went a little bit like this.
Client: “So you know that I have hip problems. And so I can't really train this area. I need to avoid working out anything directly related to this hip. Um, in fact, even being on this bike is making me a little uncomfortable.” The client was sitting on a recumbent bike which is a stationary bike where your feet are out in front of you. That's why my little physical therapy ear perked up because a recumbent bike is low stress activity for somebody with a hip issue. This interaction made me think about how many people that I know personally and professionally that have left physical therapy, still believing that their joints or their body parts are just junk. They are left thinking that there's no goods coming out of that body part and that they have to avoid using it at all costs. They ended up limiting all the things that they want to do in their life. Running has a bad reputation especially as we get older. But really running is an amazing workout! And when done correctly with the proper conditioning it is completely safe. I have helped train a 99 year old to complete a 1 mile down hill run. So Age is not the issue!
But all jokes aside, running is a very intense activity. You are basically doing a single squat over and over again. Lots of people start running as adults to lose weight or get back into shape. And this is why many people struggle with running injuries. They don’t realize that running is not the entry-level exercise. Running requires a lot of strength that we don’t think about. For instance, when was the last time you stood comfortable on one foot? How comfortable are you doing squats? I remember Sally’s face when I asked her those questions. She looked at me like I was crazy. “Why would I stand on one foot? I don’t like squats because they hurt my knees.” Were her answers. Sally called me because her back hurt when she ran and she was scared she herniated a disc. |
WE HELP ACTIVE ADULTS OVERCOME THEIR ACHES AND PAINS TO GET THEM BACK TO THEIR FAVORITE ACTIVITIES WITHOUT MEDICATION, INJECTIONS OR SURGERIES.
Dr. Molly McDonald
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