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Winter is coming - make sure your body is ready!


If you’re one of those stiff, sore individuals who find yourself getting stiffer and stiffer towards winter, as well as the standard adjustments for weather and chill, physical therapy can relieve the pains of stiff muscles and joints, to keep you out of bed and out of pain.

Pain can be minimized with the help of some treatments like exercising often, drinking plenty of water, wearing thermal clothes and attending physical therapy. Such a move keeps your body warm and does not tighten up your muscles.

Non-specific problems like swollen joints and cramps can worsen in winter because cold cuts off blood supply to muscle and nerve systems in the joints. This is an easy exercise for physical therapists to recommend individualised stretching and muscle heating or massages for such pains, as movement – stretching the limbs and pressing tissues – can relieve the tension.

Stretching should be part of any behaviour change programme aimed at alleviating and avoiding some of the soreness that we suffer in winter. So, for instance, stretch hamstring or shoulder, which will make you flexible and not be stiff when it’s cold outside. You can learn from your physical therapist which stretches to do, and how often.

The more personalized it is, based on your goals and situation, the more successful your program will be. Your physical therapist will create your programme specifically for you, based on your unique body, including the areas where you’re at most risk of aches and pains in the colder, dryer months of winter. Let North Platte Physical Therapy help you take care of your body this winter!

There’s also physical therapy for aching muscles during the winter months, and tailored exercises designed to increase flexibility, strength and blood flow, and prevent injury by improving joint stability.

An individualised workout plan of strength, balance and cardiovascular conditioning takes the place of an injury to prevent muscle damage in its tracks. Every other day, at the end of a dark winter, there’s an appointment for physical-therapy, a sign of spring.

After it snows, just imagine having to live with this pain until spring or maybe until next winter. Suppose you had a plan that would make you less sore and have more of a life (being able to hike, swim, play with the kids, etc) during the cold months. That plan you’d embrace, right?