Use Strength Training to reduce injuries
While manual therapies such as therapeutic massage and acupuncture can be effective in treating an injury, the focus should not be solely on these therapies. Strength training is a vital addition to any physiotherapy rehabilitation programme.
Strength training can be used to treat an injury, as part of rehabilitation after a surgery, to treat chronic health conditions, to enhance the performance of athletes and to help people with general fitness.
What is strength training?
Strength training is a type of exercise done under the supervision of a physiotherapist, with the aim of making your muscles stronger. Muscle strength isn’t the only benefit of strength training however, there are many more benefits including:
Helping to maintain weight
Preventing muscle imbalance (meaning one group of muscles being stronger than others)
Building core strength
Promoting growth and strength of ligaments and tendons (which help to connect muscle to bone, keeping everything functioning correctly during movement)
Enhancing growth of connective tissues within our muscles (which keeps our muscles working properly)
Promoting growth of cartilage (which connects our bones and joints, and protects them during movement)
Increasing bone mineral content (which strengthens bones and can prevent skeletal injuries as this study explains)
This in depth study explains more about benefits of strength training, stating that this type of training is proven to, “reduce body fat, increase basal metabolic rate, decrease blood pressure and the cardiovascular demands to exercise, improve blood lipid profiles, glucose tolerance, and insulin sensitivity, increase muscle and connective tissue cross-sectional area, improve functional capacity, and relieve low back pain.”
Your physiotherapist may use weights or other equipment like elastic bands which produce resistance during specific movements to make your muscles work harder. They may also give you exercises to do at home between sessions, like ‘homework’, which can build on the work you do during your sessions.
Strength training exercises often focus on:
Building muscle strength
Making muscles stronger, so you are better able to carry out daily activities.
Increasing muscle size
Bigger muscles can enhance muscle strength, reduce fat and increase metabolism among a whole host of other positive effects.
Building muscle endurance:
This simply means working on the stamina of your muscles, meaning that you can perform activities or exercise for a longer.
Increasing range of motion
Focusing on working your joints and specific muscle groups to reduce stiffness while improving flexibility and range of motion.
Improving balance and co-ordination
Building core strength and working on specific movements can improve your balance and general co-ordination. This aspect of strength training enables you to carry out day to day activities more effectively, reducing the risk of re-injury or future injury.
What is progressive overload & why is it vital to strength training?
A vital aspect to strength training is progressive overload. That sounds complicated, so what is progressive overload? Let’s take a look.
Progressive overload simply means that you are gradually increasing the demands on your muscles, in order to make them stronger. Once you have started to establish general fitness, if you continue to do put the same demands on your muscles, they may remain strong, but they aren’t going to get stronger. To get stronger, you need to get your muscles working harder.
A detailed study on the benefits of strength training states that, “The muscle must be progressively overloaded to increase muscle strength.”
The study then goes onto explain that progressive overload: “induces higher levels of neuromuscular activation than functional exercises and so is a more effective method for improving muscle strength.”
Our physiotherapist may increase the demands on your muscles by:
Increasing the resistance during exercises: This may involve gradually using heavier weights or working with equipment which provides more resistance (such as stronger elastic bands)
Increasing the amount of an individual exercise: If you have been lifting weights, your physiotherapist may ask you to gradually increase the amount of reps you are doing
Increasing how often you do exercises: You may be asked to do more exercises at home or to attend exercise sessions more regularly
How can strength training treat an injury?
When your body experiences an acute injury, you will typically need to rest while you recover. During this time, your body experiences deconditioning. This simply means that your body becomes less fit and your muscles become weakened because they aren’t being used. This can make activity more painful when you do start to heal and try to be active again. This is where strength training comes into play.
Through careful guidance from a physiotherapist, strength training helps to gradually get your muscles strong again and increase your level of fitness. This reduces pain and helps your body to heal properly, so that you can resume your normal daily functioning.
Inflammation exacerbates pain: strength training can vastly reduce inflammation, making you more comfortable. Stress and pain are a vicious cycle, meaning that stress can make both acute and chronic pain worse. Exercise in general can help to reduce stress levels and activate the body’s natural painkillers: endorphins. By engaging in exercise, you are actively reducing stress hormones and replacing them with feel good, pain relieving hormones!
This type of training can also prevent future injuries by ensuring that your bones, ligaments, tendons, muscles and body in general are stronger, and that you know how to move your body safely. This detailed study from the Physiotherapy Journal on the use of strength training in physical therapy states that, “The research shows that meaningful strength exercise is safe and plays an important role in both prevention and disease management.”
The results of strength training can be long term, meaning you will continue to see the benefits even after your injury has healed!
So, you can see that strength training is scientifically proven to be highly effective in treating all sorts of injuries and long-term health conditions!
References
Fleck SJ, Falkel JE., (1986), “Value of resistance training for the reduction of sports injuries.” Sports Med. 1986 Jan-Feb;3(1):61-8.
Kraemer, W.J., Ratamess, N.A. & French, D.N., (2002) “Resistance training for health and performance.” Curr Sports Med Rep 1, 165–171
Lexell, Jan & Flansbjer, Ulla-Britt. (2008). “Muscle strength training, gait performance and physiotherapy after stroke.” Minerva medica. 99. 353-68.
Hautala, A. et al., (2015), “Strength training in physical therapy”. Physiotherapy, Volume 101, e12
