Exercise Physiology in Perth
Whether you’re recovering from an injury or are in excellent shape and want to stay fit, exercise is vital. At Perth Sports Injury Clinic, we offer exercise physiology to help patients achieve their particular health and fitness goals.
Who Could Benefit?
Our exercise physiologist, can help patients with chronic conditions, individuals preparing for surgery (knee, shoulder, etc.), and those who want to lose weight. We use strength and conditioning concepts in regards to rehabilitation for clients living with different health-related issues. These include diabetes, cancer, and metabolic disorders.
The Importance of Movement
You don’t have to be a die-hard CrossFitter or marathon runner to reap the rewards of exercise. Whether you’re at the gym doing resistance-based training or doing home-based exercise programs with or without equipment, it’s important to find a form of exercise that you like. That’s because you’re more likely to stick with it.
We can provide training adaptations that allow most people to get fitter and more active than they would normally be. Without being active, we’re missing much of our healing process. Just like if we didn’t rest, we’re not allowing our body to recover as effectively as it could.
Getting active will promote blood flow and help the muscles recondition or get stronger to protect unstable joints.
What to Expect
The first step is to get an initial consultation that takes 45-60 minutes. It gives Ashley plenty of time to chat with you to find out what’s the cause of the issue, get your medical history, and then on the spot design a program to get you started.
If, however, Ashley determines your case is more complicated, he will craft a specific program for you and present it to you at a follow-up consultation. Usually, if Ashley has already provided a patient with a program, he’ll have them come in for a follow-up consult within 3-4 weeks. That’s because it takes 2-3 weeks to observe adaptational change with the exercise program and give it a chance to work.
Customising Programs to Meet Your Needs
Ashley has many ways to regress or progress movement, and can make a program harder or easier depending on each patient’s needs. Let’s say you have no problem, and have improved, and your techniques have improved. We can make modifications to make your exercise program a bit more challenging.
“The body often will plateau out, and we’re not going to find improvement if we’re sitting in a plateau,” said Ashley. He likes to mix it up with things like adding plyometrics (jumping explosive work) to get more power out of the exercise so we can build the tendon strength or elastic potential of a muscle.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between an exercise physiologist and physiotherapist?
Exercise physiologists don’t do any invasive procedures or hands-on treatments. We can do palpation where you touch and find out where the pain is coming from, but we can’t perform manipulations or dry needling that a physiotherapist can do. We spend more time working on the exercise and designing programs around exercise.
Do exercise physiology and physiotherapists work together?
Yes. It’s ideal to combine both, because we want to reduce inflammation, swelling and pain, so a patient can get back to exercising. Once they can move again, hopefully the problem shouldn’t return.
What common surgeries have patients seeking your help had?
The main ones we’ve had dealings with are the knees (ACL, MCL ligament repairs, and full knee replacements where people are quite stiff). Some find they can’t get any more range in their legs. So that’s an area that needs to be addressed, whether it’s building flexibility in the lower limb and helping increase knee range of motion.
Moving a joint that’s injured helps with the healing process. Pre-rehabilitation before surgery can help with recovery times by building muscle. So if you’re fitter, stronger and faster before surgery, your recovery time will be reduced.
Any exercise is beneficial because you’re moving. Be sure to take the time to build a foundation before you transition to more complicated movements.
Ashley is passionate about helping people be motivated to start moving and realising the massive benefit of doing so. He doesn’t want people to fixate on a number on a scale, but instead look more towards the composition change they observe in their body, in the mirror.
Book an Appointment
Discover how exercise physiology may help you achieve your health goals. Contact us today to schedule an appointment!
