Regardless of whether you look forward to your next physical therapy session or you’re less than enthused about your next session, one thing both sides can agree on is that they want their therapy work to be as efficient as possible. There’s no point in just going through the motions and only making a partial recovery, or worse, needing more therapy because you didn’t give it your all during your earlier session. Below, we share three tips for maximizing your physical therapy sessions.
How To Be Efficient During Your PT Sessions
Getting the most out of every physical therapy session will help you recover quicker, but that doesn’t happen by accident. Here’s a look at three ways to maximize the benefit of your individual physical therapy sessions.
- Set Clear Goals – Setting goals is one of the best ways to help track your progress and continue working towards an attainable mark during your rehab. If you have clear goals in mind, you’re also more likely to really work hard during your physical therapy sessions. However, it’s also very important that the goals you set are attainable. If your goal is to be able to run a marathon by year’s end, make sure that goal is aligned with your expected outcomes. Having mismatched goals and expectations can actually inhibit your success if you feel like you’re not progressing as you should. Most physical therapists will work with you to develop attainable and realistic goals based on your injury and the expected rehabilitation plan.
- Listen To Your Limitations – We understand that you want to get back on the basketball court or return to work, but going beyond the limitations put in place by your physical therapist can easily lead to a setback and slow your progress. We’re happy to adjust your limitations or restrictions if we feel that you’ve made more progress than expected, but make sure you run it by our team first if the activity has been deemed unsafe for the time being. Following your therapist’s advice and limitations will ensure you get the most out of each session and don’t jeopardize the progress you’ve made so far.
- Track Small Progress – Odds are you have some long-term goals in place, but don’t let your inability to reach these goals in a short manner of time deter your progress. Celebrate small wins and take stock in all the things you can do now that you couldn’t do a week or a month ago. Oftentimes we recommend that patients start a progress journal to help track their progress because it’s often easier to see growth in the written form than trying to accurately remember how worse your condition was a few weeks ago. Focus on celebrating small improvements instead of being sad that you haven’t made as much progress as you had hoped. Know that it will be a slow process, but by really committing to your sessions, you can continue to make your therapy an efficient process that continues to help restore physical function.
If you can do these three things, we’re confident that you’ll be able to maximize the benefits of your physical therapy sessions and be better for it. For more information or for help with your physical condition, reach out to the team at OrthoRehab Specialists today.
PT of Costa Rican National Soccer Team for 2007 World Cup in Victoria, CAN. Clinical Instructor for University of Minnesota Doctor of Physical Therapy Affiliations
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