Powerful Steps To Stronger Hips & Knees

Wellness Expert Newsletter

• Stronger Hips & Knees • Exercise Essentials • Patient Results • All About The Hip

Just like taking care of your heart, your joints need attention to maintain a healthy state. Here are easy ways for you to take care of your knees, avoiding arthritis and other joint problems: 1. Stretch your hamstrings, quadriceps and adductor muscles each day. By keeping these muscles flexible, the forces on your knee joints can be balanced, allowing your joint to bend, rotate and for your patella (kneecap) to track properly. 2. Keep the muscles around your hips and knees strong. Especially the gluteals and quadriceps muscles. Studies show that those adults, especially over 55 who have stronger gluteals and quadriceps, tend to have less back pain and more ability to do daily activities. 3. Exercise regularly. While this is good for the whole body, the knees especially need exercise to keep their cartilage healthy. The cartilage does not have much blood supply and requires its nutrition from joint fluid. Most of the joint fluid absorbs into the cartilage only through movement and compression of the knee. Therefore, it is important to do weight bearing exercise such as walking, running and other sports. However, if you have arthritis, it is advised to do less impact activities such as biking, elliptical machines, aquatic exercises, etc.

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“DO YOUNEEDMORE ACTIVITY IN YOUR TREATMENT PLAN? ”

Canyon Sports Therapy Will Help You Improve In Sports Performance

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Joint Stability Improve your sports ability through joint stability. When a joint is more stable, muscles can function better. For knees, ankles and hips try balance exercises on uneven surfaces such as foam or a folded towel. Try standing on one leg while Joints need to be flexible in order to move through their proper range and allow muscles to pull correctly. For many people who are runners, stretching must be done every day to maintain muscle and tissue elasticity. Dynamic stretching is often best, where the stretch is done in a moving fashion, such as in Yoga. This is different than a prolonged stretch. Joint Strength Incorporate strengthening exercises into your sports routines. This is especially important for runners and weekend warriors. A little strengthening exercising can go a long way to prevent sports injuries and soreness. The stronger your muscles are around your joints, the doing small knee bends. Joint Flexibility

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better ability you have to play and avoid injury. Joint Coordination You have an inherent sense of where your joints are in space (proprioception) and how they are moving in space (kinesthetic sense). This allows your brain to coordinate the muscle movements around your joints. By improving your balance and coordination with specific exercises, you greatly reduce the chance of injury and will enhance your sports performance.

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My hip pain has decreased! “I came to Canyon Sports for hip tendonitis pain. I started working with Brad. He gave me glute workouts to help my hip. I have gained strength and range of motion and my hip pain has decreased. I will now be able to do activities such as biking and skiing without the pain in my hip. Thanks Brad.” - D.E. PATIENT RESULTS

ITMAY BE ALL ABOUT THE HIP

Until recently the human hip was one of the least appreciated joints in the human body. Being that the hip is a strong and stable joint it had rarely given us cause for concern unless we traumatize it. Not surprisingly, the human hip is responsible for quite a number of critical functions. Aside frompropelling us in all directions our hips provide incredible mobility, critical dynamic balance as well as shock absorption while allowing us freedom to do all sorts of activities. It has recently become clear through research that problems accompanying the hip joint including its connective tissue and surrounding musculature may be directly responsible for a much larger group of once seemingly unrelated physical problems and injuries. Some examples of related problems which until recently had not been clearly appreciated as hip related issues now include plantar fasciitis, Achilles tendonitis, ligament and tendon strain of the foot, patella tendon and patella femoral, stress issues and low back pain. Hip and pelvic weakness may be the sole cause of a multitude of traumatic knee and ankle injuries in athletes of all ages. With its simple ball and socket type design and a strong surrounding ligamentous capsule the hip provides exceptional mobility as well as stability to our pelvis and upper body. As it turns out the hip has critical responsibility in controlling our knee and thus further down what happens at the ankle. As we age we naturally lose strength in the large hip muscles including hip range of motion as our hip socket deepens and cartilage wears. It now appears that loss of balance and fall related accidents involving the elderly are in part due to a

musculature insufficiency and/or inability to rapidly engage hipmuscles. All serious athletes including the aging athlete should consider having Canyon Sports Therapy perform a comprehensive movement analysis and lower quarter strength assessment. Doing this will identify any movement impairment or muscle imbalance which could lead the athlete toward injury or potential hip issues later on. Correcting movement impairments also is seen to improve performance. Canyon Sports Therapy has been and continues to be the leader in Utah in understanding soft tissue pain and injury and its relationship to the hip. Our specialty is in the objective diagnosis and treatment of hip related problems even those which till nowmay have been seen as unrelated. Canyon Sports Therapy has the trained staff, sophisticated diagnostic tools including high speed motion capture, Instrumented treadmill, EMG telemetry and bike testing equipment to help get you back to pushing the limits of your ability without fear of re-injury. FORMORE INFORMATION ABOUT OUR BIOMECHANICAL ASSESSMENTS, GO TO WWW.CANYONSPORTSTHERAPY.COM

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ATTENTION ATHLETIC HIP & KNEE PAIN SUFFERERS! • Is your mind on your hip, knee or leg pain instead of your life? • Do you feel really stiff when you try to get out of bed in the morning? • Do you have to think twice before you pick things up? If You’re Nodding Yes Then Now is The Time to Make Your First Step in The Right Direction and Take Charge of How You Feel. DOWNLOAD THIS eBOOK TODAY!

DOWNLOAD INSTANTLY AT: CanyonSportsTherapy.com/kneebook

Exercise Essentials Try this simple exercise to keep you moving...

Always consult your physical therapist or physician before starting exercises you are unsure of doing.

SHORT ARC QUAD Helps strengthen knees Place a rolled up towel or object under your knee and slowly straighten your knee as you raise up your foot.

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Do you have questions about our services?

WILL IT HURT? Physical therapy is not meant to hurt, but to relieve pain. However, as you restore your mobility, pain levels, at times can fluctuate. You might experience some temporary soreness from using muscles that are weakened or recovering. This is a normal response to therapy treatment. Good communication with your therapist will help minimize any discomfort. We want you on your way to quick pain relief and back to normal activities. Have another question? Visit our website at canyonsportstherapy.com to review our list of frequently asked questions we answer!

Call Today! (801) 944-1209 Fax: (801) 274-1180