Episode #127 you've got the green light - now let's actually build a plan

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Transcript

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Hey, hey, hey. Welcome back to the podcast. Today we're gonna talk about you got the green light from getting cleared after physical therapy, but now what? Now let's actually build a plan like getting cleared from your typical physical therapy after an injury. It's kind of like. Being handed a driver's license, but no map or direction on like where to go or how to actually drive the car. You can move again, but like, what am I supposed to do? What does ease back into it actually mean? You're probably left wondering, well, am I allowed to lift again? Do I just go back to what I was doing before? Like what if I experience pain, like, is pain normal? When should I stop or keep going? Like how do I know? What is right for my body with where I'm at right now? Like these are all questions that are probably running through your head. If you're an active person and you went to physical therapy and now you're like, okay, how do I get back to my workouts? Right? So through this episode, I'm gonna talk through how to go from getting that green light to actually making a game plan that makes sense for you and your body. So first off, I wanna make it very clear, I am not dissing pt. There's a time and a place for physical therapy and when I am speaking about like how the physical therapy process goes, this is for insurance based physical therapists. There are a lot of amazing cash based physical therapists that do things differently and spend more time with you and all of that. So I just want to put that disclaimer out there. But anyways, we're, we're talking about general run of the mill physical therapy. What it does well is getting you back to basic function. And when I say basic function, I mean like being able to walk again, picking something off from a shelf being able to bend over without excruciating pain. If you think of like your activities of daily life. That is what physical therapy excels at. Getting you back to physical therapy is not designed to get you back to lifting heavy in the gym. It's not designed to get you back to running 10 miles without pain. It's not designed to get you back to being able to do a burpee in a box jump without any issue. Right. So there's definitely. Things that it prepares you for. And there's a lot, if you're an active person, then it actually does not prepare you for, and it's not designed to prepare. Prepare you for that either. So what I typically see after people being done with physical therapy is like they are missing progression. They're missing strength progression, they're missing how to progress load. They're missing a specific, like, specific instructions on what they should be doing in the gym for their body, like right now. Right. Where I think physical, typical physical therapy misses the mark is just like not giving any direction to people about like, how to return to those workouts they were doing before. I mean, the direction I got was just take it easy and ease back into it. I'm a train, I was a trainer and at that point I had been a trainer for seven years and I was still like, okay, well what the fuck does that actually mean though? Because you realize I was hip thrusting like over 300 pounds before this injury. So like, you know, there's just so much. That is left in that gap that is just not explained. And that is where a coach and a trainer who understands how to fill this gap is so invaluable. So I'm gonna share with you my framework for rebuilding my client strength. After an injury and what the process involves, because it's very specific, it's not vague, and it leaves you with knowing exactly what to do. So first off you could probably guess it, it starts with an in-depth assessment. And I'm not talking about an assessment. More like a regular coach would be like, okay, let me see your squat. Can you do a pushup like. No, I'm talking about let's look at you joint by joint and see what your flexibility and mobility looks like. I'm gonna have 13 tests that I'm gonna have you do, where I'm just looking at range of motion to get an idea of how your body moves. Like before I even want you do a movement, that's what I'm doing first. And then based on what I'm seeing in that initial 13 point flexibility and mobility assessment, then that helps me determine, okay, what type of strength testing do I need to be doing with this client? And when I say strength testing, we're typically doing three days of strength testing and we're doing single leg, single arm, unilateral everything. And I. The way that I explain this and think about it is like, okay, I am looking at your body entirely from right to left, upper, lower, front to back, and in every movement pattern, where are we at? Right? Like a true determination of like, okay, the strength at, for the, for your lower body squat pattern, right to left. Where is your strength at, for your upper body pushing pattern, right to left. Where's your core strength at? And like, sorry if you could hear my dog. I dunno what's happening. But anyways, so we go through that three days of strength testing and then after that, so after the four full days of testing, I have such a good idea on like where your body's at flexibility and mobility wise, strength wise. I see where the gaps are and at this point I'm able to. Look at your results and like know your symptoms and what you're experiencing and what you're dealing with, and I'm able to see, okay, these are like highlighted puzzle pieces that are a part of the puzzle of why your body's feeling the way that it is. Like every single person that comes to me is really left with a lot of. Question marks when it comes to, okay, but why the fuck is my knee still hurting? Right? And after doing this in depth assessment, I'm able to see, I'm able to explain to the person, okay, it's actually not just about your knee, it's also about your hips, it's about your ankle, it's about your hip strength, it's about your after strength, it's about your strength right to left, like, and it just starts to paint this picture of like really answers to why their knee feels the way that it does. So that is the value of taking the time to do a full assessment before just throwing you workouts. So we go through that four day assessment process. I write out a summary document, explain to you like, here's what I found, here's what it means for you, and here's what we need to focus on in your program to fill in these gaps, to get you progressing and starting to feel better. So. This is, and I build out your program based on those exact things. And this is where specificity, intention and just like strategic progression come into play. Because then at that point I build out, okay, this is what I want your workouts to look like. You know, mixing that with your time, availability, things that you can do, all of that we determine like, okay, this is gonna be the frequency. This is what they're gonna look like. And so you, and at this point, the client have a, you know exactly what to do. You know, when you walk into the gym, you know exactly what you should be doing for your body. You have peace of mind knowing that it's built for where your body is at. And you have guidelines around, okay, here's a level of pain or discomfort that is acceptable if it gets to, you know, this level. Then you need to adjust, load or range of motion, right? So you also have an idea of like what discomfort is normal when you're rehabbing working through cane, and when do you peel it back to get it to that manageable load level. So, so, yeah, and then like from there, we obviously progress the program week to week based on how you're feeling, make any adjustments. If we're checking in with each other, how are you feeling? Does anything feel weird? Like stuff like that. And then typically, I. After. Well, what I tell most people is like, within the first six weeks you're gonna start feeling a lot better. You're gonna notice your body feeling better. And that doesn't mean you're gonna be fixed in six weeks, okay? It takes much, much longer than that. But you, body acts starts to feel better pretty quick once you start doing things that make sense for where your body's at. And you're not just throwing shit at the wall and doing way too much, right? So. With that feeling. With that being said on that note of like strategic progression, knowing exactly what to do, all of that, where I see a lot of people make mistakes after physical therapy is that you just go from being clear right back to what they were doing before, from being clear to going back to CrossFit, from being clear to running five miles from being cleared. To going back to F 45, 5 times a week. And that's, you're essentially going from like zero to 100 directly after physical therapy. And your body doesn't have the foundational level strength to be doing what you were doing before. And so then you get in this pattern of like, okay, I'm like, you know, doing what I was doing before, I am trying to quote unquote ease back into it. But really you don't know what that even means. So you're just trying to like. Slow down. But then it's too much falling for your body and then you're not recovering. You might have a flare up and then you just like rest because what else are you supposed to do? And then the cycle starts back over again. And then you're going right back to what you're doing before. And you might be okay for a few weeks, but then you might, you know, have another flare up and you just kind of end up in this cycle of like. Okay, I'm flared up, I'm gonna rest until it feels better, then I'm gonna go back to what I was doing. But then you might have a flare up later on and it just like becomes this really frustrating cycle. All because you skipped rebuilding the foundation after physical therapy. And so that's the most common mistake that I see. And when clients go through my assessment process and I say like, okay, this is like. This is has a lot to do with why your body's feeling the way that you are. You have all these strength gaps, you have these mobility limitations. They're usually like, oh wow, like that makes a lot of sense. So we are gonna take the time to build a program it around filling in these gaps because once we shore up these weaknesses shore up these mobility issues, you're gonna start to feel a lot better. And how you should feel. If you are doing this right and if you're doing the right thing for your body, you should feel confident, confidence in what you are doing. You're not constantly second guessing and thinking like, is this right for my body? Am I doing the right thing? Like, am I going to hurt for myself again? Like, there's none of that. You are confident and knowing like, this is what I'm supposed to be doing for my body, and that should give you peace of mind that you have that clarity. And you know exactly what to do when you might be feeling a little bit of pain. Like you're, you're gonna, you know because of guidance from me or whoever you're working with, you should have like around, if it feels like this, you should stop. If it feels like this, you should try adjusting the, the weight, the range of motion, and see if it gets it down to x, y, z level. And then because you have this confidence, this clarity, that creates consistency because you're not constantly falling back into the pattern of having a setback, needing to rest and then get back to it, right? So you are. Sporadic workout schedule turns into, oh wow, I'm finally like being consistent again at two times a week, three times a week, four times a week, whatever that is, because you're actually doing something that is built for your body, makes sense for your body, and you can actually recover from, and that is how you make true progress when you are rebuilding strength after an injury. Like this is how it's done. So if you are listening to this and you're like, man, this sounds like exactly what I need. This is the type of work we do in my eight week offer, the movement rebuild that starts July 14th. It is completely custom to your body and it's designed to get you going on a program that's built for you, makes sense, and start moving you in the right direction. I am not going to fix all your problems, and you are not going to be fully. Better and complete in eight weeks. But it is going to give you a starting point and to get you in a groove with that consistency again. And you'll walk away with knowing like, Hey, I'm on the right track. I'm in a groove. This is the type of stuff that I should be doing. So if that is you and you're interested in that, I have details in the show notes. And if you have questions, you can send me a DM on Instagram at Coach Ashley 1, 2, 7. We start July 14th. I only have five spots, so spots are limited. If you're interested, send me a message. Let's get you going. Reserve your spot, all the things. All right. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next time.