In this video, Kristin Procopio, Founder of Studio U, Master Physical Therapist and Pilates Instructor talks about how different therapies can be combined to create good movement. She dives deep into Physical Therapy, Pilates, Yoga, Chiropractic, Personal training and some others.
At Studio U you have a number of different therapists and practitioners. Can you talk about why you have more than just physical therapy at Studio U.
Yes, it goes back to a continuation of care of where a patient comes from, what they need to do. There are specialties in this world that do what they do, and they are great at what they do and we all can't do everything. And so we need to find our niche and when we see that our clients need something else, to get them to that person that can help them is great. So I've incorporated so far at Studio U, I'm hoping to develop even of a bigger integrative care type clinic, we have neuromuscular massage therapy, we have personal training, we have straight Pilates without the physical therapists piece. We also are introducing some hours with another group of traditional based therapy insurance based for those people who really do have acute injuries that need to be seen. It's part of that whole continuum. I believe that people need to have access to other places and we need to refer to other people so that client can get everything that they need.
How do athletes benefit from physical therapy?
Obviously athletes benefit from physical therapy for the injury. Athletes can utilize a physical therapist to start to work on building performance and whatever that requires performance. So whether it's skill, or speed, or power or whatever that is. An athlete could come in, we would evaluate them, figure out what are they lacking, where is their motion. Is it a tightness? Is it a weakness? Is it a hypermobility somewhere, flexibility issue. And we would help train them into that and help to train them into their sport.
Now that being said, we are not technically coaches. We are not professional pros for golf. We are not that. However we know movement and we know what movement needs to happen for those sports. So we will help recreate that movement, help those muscles figure out where they need to go. And then, of course, we'll send them off to people who really know their skills and they get to work on the skills and put all that together.
As our consumers and patients learn about physical therapy, to us it feels like there's no substitute for it. Would you agree with that? Is there any other specialty that really competes with physical therapy because yoga doesn't seem like it competes, Pilates has its own unique benefits. Would you say that physical therapy is really its own unique therapy?
I would. Once again a physical therapist looks at a body from a certain way, how is it moving and is it moving cleanly and efficiently. We have our chiropractors who also look at a body similarly but we end up working differently we're actually very, very complementary. Oftentimes I will have a client see a chiropractor so they can get the bones moving a little bit better and let that that movement happen and then they're back to me so I can help train that new movement pattern.
When you move into the yoga in Pilates world you're absolutely training those patterns however it's more of a generalized training so it's a great way, great transition in your own world to play with it because you know money is a factor. You need ways to play in your own place and if you love yoga and if you love Pilates, well let's teach you how to be safe there, and then you can go play there. Personal training same thing. They will look at movement and all that too but once again not as not to the same degree that a physical therapist can. So they might say you have a weakness in your glute, will see that while your hip doesn't move, your hip capsule is too tight, we need to stretch it and open it and do this and that is not within their realm. So they send people on. So yes, physical therapy does have its own niche for sure.
Can you explain it as a physical therapist to our consumers out there what is the difference between good pain or bad pain post-workout?
All right good question. Pain in general with a workout, I'm going to start with during the workout. If you feel anything sharp and shooting or a very specific pain, that is a bad pain. That's true for during, after before, that's a bad pain. You never want to have that. That's more of a joint type issue, a deeper issue. Now a little soreness and tightness and muscles you've used, normal. That being said, if you feel completely wasted after a workout you probably worked too hard. The muscle recovery should be within within a couple hours you should still feel pretty darn good. If you're feeling a lot of pain within a couple hours, too hard of a workout. Next morning you might feel a little sore, that's normal. That's delayed muscle soreness and that's normal, sometimes up to 48 hours is not a bad thing. Now if you're still feeling this a week later, once again that's a bad pain, you overworked. If you're feeling muscle soreness and pain you're going to want to rest if you can. You might want to take a casual walk or something like that, get some movement, but not like a workout a hard workout. More of a let me get my blood flowing to see if you can kind of clean out some of the junk that's hanging out and the muscles and get rid of that. But you don't want to force yourself to keep using that tired muscle even though it's not a bad pain if you keep using you could injure it.
Can you cover some of the top reasons you that they should see a physical therapist?
The top reason would be you don't feel good in your own body. That's probably the main reason, whatever that is. Whether it's a pain, a stiffness, I don't move very well anymore, I don't understand why it takes me so long to get out of a chair. I can't go up the stairs. I need to reach in to grab my grandchild out of out of the crib. When I'm cooking or doing dishes, I feel a lot of upper back pain. I sit all day at work and wow I get really tight in my neck. So really anything that just doesn't feel normal that you're starting to notice is catching up with you and a lot of times some of these vague feelings we might take them into our doctor and and sometimes it gets discredited as you're just aging. I don't buy that. Yes aging, aging happens. However we if we can keep our muscles moving and limber and our joints moving where they need to do, we can fight aging to a point and keep you moving.
We just want people to feel good in their bodies in whatever mode that is if it's not physical therapy that's fine, but whatever that is you should feel good in your body.
