People often think, “Do I have to keep doing all of these exercises for the rest of my life?” after coming to therapy and performing weeks of exercises, getting hands on care from your therapist, then getting back to your pain free life. This is a great question, and the answer is both yes and no.

Let me explain: If you are performing 10-20 minutes of exercises on a daily basis, there is no need to continue to perform this many exercises. However, I have a question for you: Do you brush your teeth every day? Why? To prevent you from having cavities, would it make sense to perform a few exercises every day to prevent you from having your pain again?

After you complete your therapy there are most likely 2-3 exercises that you should be performing to keep your strength up and prevent you from having your problem return. This should only take 5 minutes or so 2-3 days a week. You want to keep the muscles that have a tendency to be weak strong to keep your pain away.

Dr. Christopher Aeschliman, PT, DPT