During my third week in physical therapy, we continued the same exercises from the previous week but added some challenge to them. You can check out those exercises here and read about my gait analysis here.
I continued to do adductor strengthening by standing on one leg and pressing the other leg into a wall or table. However, this week we added balance by standing on an unstable surface. I’ve continue to hold this for 5-6 seconds, 10 times on each side.
While in PT I continued the ball toss standing on an unstable surface. My PT had me throw the ball with my right arm only, left arm only, both arms, and then from above my head- 20 times each way for a total of 80 on each foot. The ball I have at home is light and I don’t have a net, so instead I have just been using a weight and pushing it in and out.
I’ve also continued bridging with a ball between my knees but added some stability work to this: After bridging up I then march by lifting each foot just slightly off the ground while keeping my pelvis completely straight- 5 lifts on each side- and then lower both hips back down to the ground, repeating for 10 times total.
The plan is to continue with 2 sessions this week, and then 1 session per week for the following 2 weeks. Hopefully after that I will be done if I keep progressing well!
Do you ever do workouts on an unstable surface to make an exercise more challenging?
Have you ever done any of these exercises?
I worked at a physio clinic and the physios used the unstable surface all the time. There was a little boy that always came in (he had had a broken ankle) and they had him stand on the wobbly dish while they played catch with a ball. It’s so true how we tend to focus so much on the main muscles that we forget about all the supporting tissue that works so hard holding us together. It’s like forgetting to give credit to the director of a play. Thanks for sharing all of these! I’ve got major imbalances going on that I’ve been working on. These look great.
That’s so true! And its really pretty easy to improve our balance if we just incorporate small things throughout the day. I’ve started balancing on one foot barefoot while I do things like brush my teeth and blow dry my hair.
I’ve done variations of these with yoga poses! I love doing yoga in the sand because it is way harder to balance too! 🙂
Oh wow! Yoga is the sand sounds really challenging!
I’ve never done an unstable surface but I can see where it makes the exercise more effective and form so important. Looks like you’re doing so well!
Definitely! I really feel my core engage when I stand on something that forces me to focus on my balance!
Yep! I do a lot of these! Good ones, and will help a lot. You will be back to full strength before you know it 🙂
Good to know! I’m hoping that really help me to get stronger and prevent future injuries:)
Hooray for progressions! Love progress!
Yes!! Me too:)
These will all help you so much!!! I have used a bosu ball in the past and think it makes a big difference, but we made a home gym and haven’t gotten one yet so I don’t use one right now.
It really does help alot! I just have the small balance pad that i used in the pictures but it works well eneough!
I did all of these exercises back when I was in PT for weak ankle and calf muscles. The balance work made all the difference! Now I do bridges all the time—such a great exercise for both strength and stability!
I think they assign bridges for just about every injury, so you know they’re an important exercise! Balance is so important for runners.
I love adding a bosu ball to make the workouts more challenging. It also happens to be one of my favourite workout tools! I went through some PT a few years ago and its really cool to see that we were doing some of the same exercises. I know I hated the bridge during my recovery, it was just incredibly uncomfortable!
It’s a great tool! Glad to hear you did some of the same exercises. I don’t mind bridges too much, but they are kind of redundant.
I hope my gym brings back our bosu ball soon because I really need to work on my balance!
After about a week and a half of no tight hip, it’s come back full force and now my IT band is bothering me too. I’m wondering WHY since I’m barely running and all of it is easy. I’m doing my normal hip stretches and I think I’m going to buy some resistance bands today to do some additional hip workouts I saw on the RW website.
Hm that is really weird! But honestly I feel like my pain makes no sense whatsoever. Some days I feel more uncomfortable than others and there is no rhyme or reason to it. Very frustrating!
I haven’t done a lot of stability work, but we did once with me doing lunges on a bosu. That was challenging, and the magic number of reps at my PT is always 20. Needless to say my legs were tired.
That does sound really challenging! I wonder if we will add in lunges as some point.
I love doing ball tosses on one leg! I make my kids join me this so that we’re all getting a good session in. I would love to add in balance discs like those, though, and actually have a post on that coming up! Keep up the good work.
That’s a great idea! I think I need a heavier ball if I want to do the tosses. I look forward to your post about balance!
My barre class has us doing bridges at the end of every class – I’ll have to try adding instability at home, that sounds hard!
I went to barre this morning and we did quite a few bridges at the end! Definitely a good glute workout!
Hopefully those PT sessions will be helping you. I am so unstable when it comes to balancing. These moves would be a challenge for me.
I always thought i had pretty good balance so this is kind of eye opening! I’ve also been trying to balance on one leg throughout the day to further work on balance.
How are you feeling since going back? Are you noticing improvements?
Sometimes yes and then I will feel like I am right back where I started. We are starting to figure out the issue…my SI joint is out of alignment every time I go. So I think once we can figure out the underlying cause of that I will be able to see more improvements. A week ago I was feeling so much better but then out of nowhere things feel off again! (And not due to running…so I have no idea what- if anything- makes it worse!)
I’ve done most of these at PT, the bridges with the ball are my nemesis, mainly because I don’t activate my glutes so these really kill. I try and do more on uneven surfaces because I feel it much more, especially the day after. I really hope PT helps and makes you stronger!!
I don’t activate my glutes properly either so its always good when I find exercises that forces them to engage!
Those are awesome, I need to start incorporating those, although I don’t have that squishy thing you are standing on…what is that called?
I think its a balance disc of some sort…I think I saw it in Runners World years ago and bought it but rarely used it until recently, but now its been really great for these exercises!
I love that challenge for the bridge ball squeeze! I’ll have to try that one out sometime 🙂 It sounds like you’re making great progress in PT! I was doing an exercise to learn how it feels from a patient’s perspective at work today, and I was terrible at it because it really gets your glutes, which don’t like to be active on me haha. It seems like exercises like that are always way harder than they look too! At least we know what to work on though 🙂
I’d love for you to share some of what you are learning from working in a PT office! That actually sounds like a really fun job to me:)
I’ve done the bridging the ball between my knees. Great exercises!
You are going to be so strong!! 🙂
It’s a good one!
Yep! Several of those look familiar. I felt like the unstable surface really helped me gain strength in the little stability muscles that are otherwise so hard to work out.
Exactly! There are so many muscles that can be neglected if we don’t do the proper exercises!
Funny, I’ve done all of these exercises in PT too! I really should do more of the PT stretches and exercises more often because my foot and calf have been bothering me again. Bleh, my injuries never seem to fully go away!
I feel like once you injure an area problems there come back so easily! I think PT exercises are never a bad idea:)
Those look like some good exercises. I’m currently in physical therapy right now too and working on improving my strength and flexibility for running. It’s been a lot of information to take in, but I’m trying to get it all down so I can get back to running soon. Good luck on your PT journey!
It can be alot of information but hopefully it will help you to stay injury free for a long time! (That’s what I keep telling myself too:))