Physio Tips for Doing Home Exercises

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Going to and from your physiotherapists is not enough to attain the level of wellness we aspire to have, and they are aware of it. In between physical therapy schedules, your doctor will most likely prescribe additional routines for you to do in order to keep you improving and developing.

Of course, the entire process takes work and commitment to fully realize its results. Aside from increasing muscle strength and endurance, exercises also help prevent serious illnesses such as diabetes, heart problems, and even slow down the aging process according to a study.

Home exercises are activities that patients are expected to complete at home in between sessions to maintain their strength and speed up the recovery process. These are routines intended to be feasible and accessible to patients even without assistance and supervision. To make sure you get the most out of your home exercises, here are some tips to check out:

Plot Your Schedule

It is a common experience to fail at following up with these home exercises – either because you are too busy or you simply forgot about it. Usually, home exercises only take around 15 to 30 minutes and most of it does not have to be done every day.

To get around scheduling difficulties, visual aids often help. Start out by marking the schedule of your physiotherapy sessions in your calendar, virtual or otherwise. Then you start having an idea of the time in between appointments, allowing you to set aside a block of time for your home exercises. While you can plot your daily schedule and find where home exercising fits, it is easier to remember if it is scheduled on the same days and at the same time.

Set Alarms

Whether you are recovering from an injury or simply working out to get fit, the fact is that we still have a lot of other things to do. Although you might be aware of which days you have to do your home exercises, small and sudden activities could bump your session out of the schedule. Setting an alarm might help you get back on track. Even in the middle of doing something else, hearing your alarm should be enough to stop what you’re doing and start your routine.

Observe Your Pain Level

By performing the same set of activities over and over again, you can somehow note your body’s response to pain. The most commonly used is the numerical rating system (NRS) pain scale, with 10 being the worst pain possible and 0 being no pain at all. Take note that observing your progress with regards to pain tolerance depends on you following your schedule for home exercises. Watching your pain response improve is a reward in itself, motivating you to see this through. On the other hand, if your response does not improve, you might have to discuss it with your physiotherapist to see if something else is not going well.

Set Priorities

Depending on which part you intend to develop first usually there are 3 to 5 activities which will take higher priorities over other supplemental parts of the routine. Feel free to ask your physical therapist for help in identifying the most important activities you need to do. This way, in case you don’t have the time to do them all, you can at least put in the most important exercises. Also, if you find the prescribed time hard to maintain, you can also discuss it with your therapist and see if he can make changes.

Include Your Home Exercises with Other Activities

Imagine squeezing some heel raises in the fifteen-minute wait for the train every day or doing some planks or crunches in between household chores. Sometimes regular compliance is made easier by including them bit by bit with other regular activities you usually do. Adding them as short breaks in between work or your regular workout makes it more natural, you won’t notice you’re doing them at all.

Doing exercises for injury recovery or improving wellness will require you to dedicate both time and effort. Repetition of the same activities might get tedious over time, but considering some of the tips above might help you turn home exercises from task to habit. In time, all the small minutes you work hard to put in will pay off, resulting in stronger, happier you.

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