Physiotherapy & Wellness

We don’t have to see you only when you are injured. Through our assessment we can pinpoint areas for you to work on to prevent injury and attain your specific activity goals. Engage in a regular strength and mobility program to keep your body ready for your activities. This also helps to combat any biases and compensations that may develop because of your choice of activity. Programs can be created by a physiotherapist or personal trainer. Progress slowly. If we go from not doing much to a lot, this can overload your body and injuries can develop. Moving slowly helps you to ‘train’ for your choice of activity.

Running is an amazing way to stay active and soak up the beautiful Vancouver summer weather. The most common type of running injury is a repetitive use injury. This means we have done too much too quickly that our body cannot tolerate the load. To prevent injuries progress slowly with your frequency, distance, pace, and time spent running. Therunningclinic.com has some great resources as well as training programs to follow.

Gardening is a fun way to be outside and create something beautiful for you to enjoy. This activity does have some associated injury risks, the most common being low back and upper body strains. The best way to prevent this is to go slowly and spread out your tasks with breaks in between. Often, we do not do much in the garden during the winter and then a spike in activity when it becomes spring. Heavy lifting of dirt, pulling weeds, raking, and bending over for several hours can cause issues if we have not been used to it. Another great way to be active, competitive, and social. Being such a fast-paced sport, tennis does come with its own risks. Tennis elbow, ankle, and shoulder injuries are the most common. Stretching and strengthening on both sides of your body is very important as racket sports are very lopsided. If you are new to the sport or just starting up after winter, go slowly and address areas of discomfort quickly to avoid prolonged injury. These rules can also be applied to those enjoying pickleball.

Vancouver and area have so many beautiful courses to choose from it is easy to go too hard, too fast. The most common way we can injure ourselves golfing is a repetitive use injury, which can occur almost anywhere in the body.

If you don’t engage in regular activity over winter, try starting out hitting half a bucket at the driving range then progress to a full bucket, then 9 holes, then 18. The same goes for gradually walking further distances and time to get ready for chasing the ball around the course. Working on some corrective exercises at home or at the gym is also helpful as golf is an uneven activity for the body. ♦