Discover The Different Forms Of Therapeutic Exercise And How They Encourage Healing

By Coleen Torres


Injuries to the muscles and other soft tissues of the body often require a course of physical therapy in order for the patient to regain normal body movement. Therapeutic exercise is an important component in most physical therapy regimens and it can effectively aid in not only easing pain, but also restoring range of motion, balance, strength, and flexibility.

The physical therapist will evaluate the patient's condition by conducting an assessment of his or her ability to move, and taking a medical history. This information will be used to formulate a specific course of exercises which become progressively more challenging as the patient improves. Once the pain is overcome, the focus will be on restoring the body's strength, endurance, and flexibility.

A combination of different exercises are implemented in a physical therapy program, these are classified by the nature of the movement and how it affects the body. With passive exercise, the muscles don't have to do any work, manual or mechanical force is applied externally, which helps restore normal movement to the joints. Whereas with active exercises, the cooperation of the muscles is needed, either alone or with assistance, this not only improves motion of joints, but also strengthens neuromuscular control.

There are other type of activities designed to build endurance and strength in damaged muscles. Once the patient has progressed to the point where he or she can safely carry out range-of-motion and flexibility exercises, it's time to begin strength and endurance training. Gradually increasing resistance is added steadily so the body can respond by naturally gaining strength in the tendon, ligaments, muscles, and bones.

Strength exercises are classified as static or dynamic. A static activity does not require movement of the joint, the tension and resistance are equal, and the muscle fibers remain the same length throughout the movement. The angle is the key aspect which makes the difference in this case, so patients are advised to vary the angle of each set, making sure they hold it for several seconds each time, as this is what builds strength.

Dynamic exercises imply movement on the part of the joints and muscles and may be further categorized into manual, variable-resistance, isokinetic, and isotonic movements. These types of activities result in the concentric and eccentric, or lengthening and shortening of muscles which generate force during movement. The repeated stretching of the muscle-tendon bundles increases tensile strength.

Variable-resistance and manual resistance exercises work based on the principle that the muscles produce a limited force when the joints are positioned in extremes of the range of motion. The main difference is that the latter involves the therapist manually applying resistance, and the former relies on the use of a machine that accounts for proper joint alignment and applies resistance relative to force. With isotonic movement, the muscles are lengthened by external force which imposes a change on the joint's angle, this is seen with many weight machines, ankle weights, and free weights.

Isokinetic exercises are carried out with a fixed speed and equal muscle force and resistance. Machines to generate this type of movement deliver force to match the user's level of muscle resistance and often have adjustable settings in terms of concentric and eccentric actions with varying velocities.




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