Saturday, February 14, 2009

Post Op Week 8 and 1 Day, aka VD


Happy Valentines Day ya'll (watched Friday Night Lights recently, hence the "ya'll" - great show though)

Another bike ride today, here are times:
3:50 - house to boardwalk (BW) warm-up
12:10 (8:20) - 2.5 miles of BW - had a pretty strong backwind, felt great
24:20 (12:10) - 2.5 miles back - had to fight that wind that helped me get an 8:20, twas a good challenge
27:54 (3:54) - cool down

Total distance: 6.27 miles (10.09 km for the rest of the world :)

I am trying to set up a V02 max bike test so that I can really start training properly. I still have my big old clunky mountain bike. I want to start taking some pictures and video of all this fun stuff to share with you guys... the tearing down of Coney Island is a sad reminder on every ride though, there are a ton of blogs covering it (here is just one), but sad to see every time out there, it's still a beautiful ride.

Tomorrow I will try to go swimming for the first time... I went in a hot tub when I visited Atlantic City last weekend, and while it was relaxing, all that heat is not great for the knee...

Now on to clinical thoughts, the actual original intent of this blog!

This past week my case load grew quite a bit which is always great for stability and my own comfort, rather than just jumping around picking up random patients from other therapists. Got to see an orthotic evaluation including the mold of the feet being made, they get shipped out to the company that makes the orthotics and the patient gets support and improved function just like that, it's a beautiful process (minus the foot smell, just kidding).

A main point that keeps coming up and I think is a common issue with many newer practitioners is "too much versus too little". Coming out of school you have a million different possibilities in mind, and often times you want to screen for every one of them and other times you may not screen enough and end up missing something. There is a fine balance with huge implications on the time you have in the day. Also pushing a patient through an extra set or few reps versus not challenging the muscles enough, the balance of good vs. bad pain vs. soreness. This all requires the most intricate of understandings of muscle physiology, periodization of training, healing response, that person's psychological profile, among other things. Even typing this gets me excited about the job I get to do every day... I wish I was a little more eloquent with my vernacular most days, but I hope my passion for the human body and all the musculoskeletal stuff going on comes through to you... all that heart, lungs, bowel stuff, just not as exciting.

Speaking of passion for PT, check out this blog from India:
http://physioindia.blogspot.com/

Lastly, I am pretty upset I did not get to go to Las Vegas for the Combined Sections Meeting of the APTA, I hear it was a pretty amazing conference with tons of learning and fun... I am gonna try not to miss too many more, so hopefully no more surgeries for me :(

hope you didn't pay too much for those roses today... i paid $5 a rose... got them for my momma

1 comment:

Dr. M.C. Hasty said...

Don't worry about your eloquent "vernacular" .....I had to look it up!

I face the same "too much vs too little" dilemma each day....indirectly proportional with self-confidence (ie more practice).