9 Benefits of Physical Therapy

9 Benefits of Physical Therapy

At Rocky Mountain Flex Fitness, we believe that being healthy and fit doesn’t just revolve around lifting weights and running on the treadmill to look great in a swimsuit. It’s about taking care of your body and doing everything possible to optimize your health to get the results you want!

One way to take your training to the next level is to incorporate physical therapy into your fitness routine. When most people think of working with a PT, they think it’s only to recover from existing injuries, but physical therapy is much more than that. Physical therapy can act as prehab, helping you prevent injuries before they happen by optimizing mobility and evaluating muscle control with specific exercises. It can also help you perform optimally by improving your strength and flexibility, fixing any imbalances or mobility issues you might have, and helping you deal with aches, muscle pain and tightness that you experience from your everyday activities.

With that, we have some exciting news to share! Starting May 1, 2023, Dr. Ryan Smith, The Savvy PT, will be moving his practice into Rocky Mountain Flex Fitness. This is a great opportunity for us to expand our services as a premiere training gym in Denver and offer even more ways for our clients and members to take their health and fitness to the next level.

About Dr. Ryan Smith, Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT)

Dr. Ryan is a Physical Therapist who has been working in Denver since 2011. He earned his bachelor’s degree in kinesiology from Southern California and a Doctorate of Physical Therapy from Bond University in Queensland, Australia, in 2011. Over the years, he has worked in various inpatient and outpatient clinics, gaining experience with various types of conditions, and started his own Physical Therapy clinic in Denver to offer the best possible care without being constrained by insurance companies.

Dr. Ryan’s interests are in orthopedic therapy, pain relief, and body mechanics, and he’s passionate about helping patients eliminate pain and restore functional movement. He is focused on treating injury and dysfunction of the joints and muscles, promoting whole-body mobility, and helping people eliminate pain and restore functional movement so they can use their bodies at full capacity for the things they love to do. As a former soccer and rugby player and now Jiu Jitsu enthusiast, Dr. Ryan understands the pain, frustration, and motivation to get back to normal and is committed to helping his patients achieve optimal recovery.

We’re thrilled that Dr. Ryan’s practice will be joining the team at Rocky Mountain Flex, as we have a shared passion for helping all people achieve their fitness and wellness goals!

Here are some benefits of physical therapy:

  1. Personalized care: One of the major benefits of seeing a physical therapist is that you will get a customized treatment program tailored to you. Your specific needs and goals will be taken into consideration and they will focus on reducing any pain you have, improving your range of motion, and progressing through your exercise program to keep you challenged, whether that is with prehab for injury prevention or to get you on the path to recovery from an injury. 
  2. Faster recovery: a physical therapist can help you recover from an intense workout or race by offering targeted treatments and strategies to lessen muscle soreness and inflammation, increase circulation, and accelerate the body’s natural healing process. This could involve modalities such as dry needling, manual therapy methods like myofascial release (Cupping and Graston technique), trigger point release, active release therapy, nerve glides and mobilizations, joint mobilizations and joint distraction, muscle energy technique, and soft tissue massage.
  3. Prehab to prevent future injuries: Prehab, also known as preventative rehab or prehabilitation, is used to reduce your risk for injuries while improving your physical performance. Your PT will design a prehab program after identifying any imbalances or weaknesses in your body. Your program will give you specific corrective exercises that focus on things such as stabilization, strength, and range of motion that are focused on improving your athletic performance. You will be able to incorporate these exercises into your training routine and they will progress overtime as you make improvements in biomechanics.
  4. Improve performance: If you’re an athlete or just looking to improve your physical performance, core stability, flexibility, balance, coordination, grip strength or overall strength, a PT can help you achieve those goals by creating a plan to improve your strength, endurance, and agility.
  5. Manage pain from tight muscles, stiffness and limited flexibility: Many people with recurring pain have an underlying issue of dysfunctional postural muscles, leading to superficial muscle spasming and tightening up to attempt to create the stability that is missing. This can even affect active and functionally strong individuals as the deeper layer muscles could be either weak, delayed or inhibited from pain, poor posture, or lack of development. Symptoms you could experience may include tight muscles, stiffness, limited flexibility, and pain with prolonged positions. A physical therapist can help you with corrective exercises that can isolate and improve these muscles, leading to better postural stability, reduced muscle tone, and less pain.
  6. Improve balance: Balance is not only important in life for preventing falls as we age, but it’s also critical for an activity like hiking a 14er or for stability when lifting weights in the gym. Proprioception is your body’s ability to make adjustments and stabilize your muscles, tendons and joints when you come in contact with a sudden change in environment. Working with your PT on balance and proprioceptive training by challenging your static and dynamic balance, can help with agility, balance, and reaction time.
  7. Manage chronic conditions: If you’re dealing with a chronic condition like arthritis, pinched nerve or fibromyalgia, physical therapy can help manage your symptoms and improve your quality of life, getting you back to doing the things you love the most!
  8. Avoid surgery: In some cases, physical therapy can help you avoid surgery altogether. By improving your strength, function and restoring movement, you may be able to heal your injury or condition without going under the knife. Even if you end up needing surgery, improving the mobility of your body can ensure a better postoperative outcome, making your recovery easier.
  9. Post-surgery recovery: A PT can provide you with post-surgical care and rehab for any orthopedic surgery. Physical therapists play an important role in helping patients recover post-surgery by designing personalized rehabilitation programs to help them regain strength, mobility, and function. They use various techniques and exercises to safely help you reduce pain, inflammation, and stiffness, and promote healing and tissue repair.

Physical therapy packages Dr. Ryan offers for athletes and highly active people

Dr. Ryan offers a wide variety of physical therapy services that you would expect from a PT, but one thing we love about him is that he also caters to active people who want to achieve their goals for their favorite activities such as skiing and snowboarding, running, Jiu Jitsu and more. This is a valuable service for those who want to excel at both winter and summer sports in Denver!

His Athlete Packages are designed for adult athletes, from hobbyists to high-level competitors, and aim to improve physical performance, prevent injuries, maintain active bodies and promote wellness.

Dr. Ryan understands that even when athletes and highly active people, like our gym members, are not injured, repetitive stress on joints and muscles can lead to aches and trigger points in muscles that cause weakness, stiffness, and reduced physical performance. Each program is tailored to address common issues within your sport and maximize your body’s functional performance while minimizing pain and stiffness. He also uses physical therapy techniques like dry needling, manual therapy, and corrective exercises to strengthen weak links and maintain progress.

Savvy Physical Therapy can assess and treat both acute and chronic injuries and pain, movement dysfunctions, poor posture, and poor balance from various causes.

Some of his PT services include:

Some of the general conditions Dr. Ryan treats include:

  • Sports injury rehab
  • Car accidents & motor vehicle accidents
  • Chronic pain
  • Surgery rehab – he works with people months/years after the surgery who still don’t feel 100% recovered
  • Posture assessment and correction
  • Balance problems
  • Generalized weakness
  • Nerve entrapments & impingements
  • Fractures – rehab after the bone has healed to regain strength and mobility around the affected area.
  • General aches & pain, stiffness & tension
  • Tendonitis & tendinosis
  • Muscle strain – pulled muscle / muscle spasm
  • Joint dislocations and subluxations
  • Headaches
  • TMD / TMJ – pain or clicking of the jaw
  • Neck pain and stiffness
  • Thoracic spine pain and stiffness / kyphosis
  • Low back pain and stiffness
  • Disc herniations
  • Radiculopathy – pinched nerve in the spine causing pain down the arm or leg
  • Shoulder pain
  • Shoulder impingement
  • Rotator cuff injuries
  • Bursitis
  • Elbow pain – lateral epicondylitis (tennis elbow) & medial epicondylitis (golfer’s elbow)
  • Reduced grip strength
  • Hip pain / snapping hip
  • Sciatica / piriformis syndrome
  • Knee pain / clicking / instability
  • Ankle sprain
  • Plantar fasciitis – foot pain / heel pain
  • Turf toe

All of us at Rocky Mountain Flex Fitness believe that great fitness is achieved from the inside out and should never be cookie-cutter. So, whether you’re a seasoned gym-goer or just starting out on your fitness journey, we encourage you to take advantage of the many ways that physical therapy can accelerate your training!

We encourage you to contact Dr. Ryan today and jump on his schedule so you can take your health to the next level.

Call / Text: 720-854-5383

Email – [email protected]

Also, if you are not yet a gym member of RMFlex and looking for a gym in Denver to call “home”, sign up for our 7-Day trial pass to come check out our facility https://rmflex.com/

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