Orthopedic & Sports Physical Therapy of Cape Cod
To strengthen your muscles, you need to lift, push, or pull weight. Stronger muscles can make it easier to do everyday things like get up from a chair, climb stairs, carry groceries, open jars, and participate in sports/recreation.
Types of Strength Training
There are a variety of different types of strength training modalities:
- Isometrics
- Isotonics
- Isokinetics
- Plyometrics
- Eccentric Work
Therapeutic versus Strength Training for Muscle Hypertrophy (Growth)
When rehabilitating muscles, tendons, joints, or after surgery, therapeutic exercise is most often the choice. Movements often involving nothing more than the resistance of body weight help nerves fire again and recruit muscles, causing them to contract.
Over time, external resistance may be applied to increase muscle fiber recruitment and to generate more force. It’s a question of facilitating healing without overloading recovering body tissue.
This is where physical therapists are clear experts. Providing patients with the appropriate therapeutic exercise prescription is our specialty. It includes:
- The type of exercises to be utilized
- The frequency (number of times per day)
- The intensity (amount of resistance)
- The duration (number of repetitions) an exercise is performed.