When you take on a new challenge, oftentimes progress is easier to see at the outset. Oftentimes you’ll see the effects of a new diet or a helpful physical therapy program within just a few days or sessions, but it’s important to remember that it won’t always be this easy to achieve progress. Continuing to hit your goals will get harder and harder, and many people end up having to overcome what’s known as a plateau.
A plateau is a time in your journey where it seems like no matter what you do, your progress seems to stall. Maybe you ate right for a week and didn’t lose any weight, or you did your home-based PT exercises but don’t feel any stronger. These plateaus are normal during any extended progression program, but it’s important to make sure they don’t end up derailing the progress you’ve made. When you plateau, it’s easy to think that the changes you’ve made have become pointless, which can cause you to slip back into bad habits. In today’s blog, we share some tips for how you can push past a physical therapy plateau.
Breaking Through Your PT Plateau
Odds are you’ll encounter a plateau at some point in your recovery journey, but it’s important that you approach them with the right mindset so that they don’t derail your progress. Here are some tips to keep in mind to break through this short-term plateau.
- Take A Closer Look – Take a closer look at your program and really try to understand if you are actually on a plateau. With the diet example, if you only judge success by weight loss, you may end up overlooking the muscle mass you’ve developed along the way, so don’t just look at the numbers on the scale to measure your progress. The same can be said for physical therapy. Don’t just judge your progress by one aspect of your recovery. Odds are you’ve made some strides in other areas, even if one area you are focusing on may have stalled a bit recently.
- Talk With Your Physical Therapist – Your physical therapist will be able to measure your progress in a number of different ways, so it’s certainly possible that you just aren’t seeing progress in the same way that they are. We’d be happy to point out the personal progress we’ve seen in recent months or weeks, because we know that it’s not always easy to self evaluate your own progress.
- Take On More – One of the reasons why it is so helpful to work with a physical therapist when working to recover after an injury or surgery is that they can adjust your PT program to your current strengths or deficits. The exercises you perform at the beginning or your rehab will not be the same exercises you perform near the end, as you’ll need to take on greater physical challenges as you make some progress. You may not be giving your body enough of a physical challenge to continue to improve, so talk with your PT about adjusting your current program.
- View It From A Wider Lens – Take a step back and assess your progress from a larger scale. You may not have made as much progress in the last couple of weeks, but odds are you are leaps and bounds ahead of where you were months ago. Find motivation through the long-term progress you’ve made instead of defaulting to whether or not you see improvement every single day.
- Stick With It – Finally, the best piece of advice we have is to grit your teeth and try to push through the plateau. It’s like coming to a big hill on your bike. Getting up it won’t be easy, and you may want to quit, but eventually with the help of persistence and effort, you’ll make it through the hardest part of your ride. The same can be said with physical therapy. Keep at it and don’t let little obstacles take your eyes off your end goals. You’ll get there, even if it takes a little longer than expected. Stick with it.
For help overcoming a personal PT or exercise plateau, reach out to the experienced team at OrthoRehab Specialists today at (612) 339-2041.
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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