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My name is Romeo Barnes. I'm an author and a BJJ black belt with cerebral palsy. This blog is about my life balancing existence in two worlds. My latest book, My World is now available Amazon.com. Glad you're here, enjoy the journey.

Why Physical Therapy sucks

Years ago, maybe 2010 I don't actually remember, I posted a short post here called "Why." That post was about why I prefer to fight able-bodied opponents as opposed to fighting opponents with disabilities. To sum the post up, I do it to prove a point. In that post I mentioned that Physical Therapy(which will be referenced as PT for this post) sucks. This post will explain why. Let me preface by saying PT isn't bad and is in fact a necessary medical service as it's great for pre-surgery, post-surgery, and injury situations. That doesn't change the fact that PT is grossly misused.

That's because PTs attempt to make your body work "normally"; what they should do is enhance the way your body already functions. Let's assume you're a cerebral palsy patient who has never walked on your own power and you use a wheelchair for mobility. Instead of putting you in a walker or on crutches and "going walking" around the room. They should put a cerebral palsy patient who doesn't walk on a stationary bike first. This will allow you (the patient) to strengthen muscles you use daily your posture muscles and your arms(assuming the bike itself has elliptical-style arms while teaching your body to properly use the walking muscles in a functional manner; this also warms up the body. The way it's traditional done is in the following order.
1) Stretch the muscles(cold stretching is idiotic there's research to prove it)
2) Work out newly stretched muscles in a prone/supine position.
3) Get on/in whatever apparatus the therapist deems most helpful for you in this stage of treatment and practice walking

Step 3 should be step 2 and shouldn't be practicing walking but rather standing up, once you can do that in an efficient manner with your legs effectively bearing most of your weight then and only then should you practice walking. Remember your brain never learned how to send commands for "walk." You never had to pull up to your feet as a toddler. Your brain found a more efficient way for you to move based on the way your muscles naturally work; that method may have been a butt scoot, crawling, walking on your knees, or walking in a handstand. There's a reason you can roll your chair longer and probably faster than any of your doctors can. Trying to change the way someone naturally moves is stupid. It flat out defies science and as we know things that defy science don't work.

Comments

  1. A very interesting and a nice blog.
    Greatings from Portugal.

    http://jcalbufeira.blogspot.pt

    ReplyDelete

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