One Bite At A Time
My youngest son Max is beginning to commando crawl. While on his belly he can pull in himself around with his arms. This is a joy to witness as a parent. It also tickles my physical therapist brain because crawling is a great way to facilitate core strength, which is a gateway to optimizing life long movement!
Of course, I eagerly want him to achieve full proficiency with this new skill as quickly as possible. To nudge him along, I often help him move his legs and/or place his favorite toy in front of him (which happen to be his brother’s favorite toys… Paw Patrol cars). In our practice this past month, I began to notice an interesting trend. If I placed the toy too far away, Max would not budge. He would looked at it than lie his head back down as though he was saying “no thank you. “However, if I placed the toy an appropriate distance away from him he would happily crawl to it.
My take away- big goals are important for growth. Yet if they are too big, we may lose interest in the time, effort needed to accomplish it. If we can break down larger goals into smaller goals then we stand a better chance at making progress.
For example, if you have knee pain while running for 5 minutes, yet want to run a marathon, then we want to make smaller, bite sized goals. I may recommend starting a strengthening routine and walking consistently for 30 minutes without pain. During this time we would address the pain to improve the knee’s mobility and capability. After this, we would set our sights on being able to tolerate jumping. This would then lead to jogging a few minutes. As these steps are mastered, we then string the minutes into many miles and eventually a marathon!
As PTs we are movement experts. We are also goal oriented. At the onset of physical therapy, we want to learn what you want to achieve. Through our collaboration and hard work, we focus on empowering you to take control of your health, and get back to activities you love!
Thank you!
Joe