When knee pain strikes as a result of running, the most common first step that is taken when starting Physical Therapy is to stop running altogether. As with any injury, when you find out what activity is causing the pain to occur, you have to minimize your exposure to the pain-causing activity while treating so you can get pain levels down, as per the 3 Phases of Healing that Dr. Asha also uses for her sciatica and back pain Physical Therapy patients. It’s the tried a true step by step process for healing. But with the AlterG Treadmill, if you know how to use it correctly, you can be much more efficient by using one trick that will allow you to get people better much faster.
Reduce Weight While Maximizing Training Output
Every time you take a step while running, you place approximately 2.5x your own body weight onto your leg. When you have pain, this can be a big problem, unless you can get into a device that can lessen the amount of extra stress. Enter the Alter G Treadmill. Because of the fact that you can significantly lessen your body weight on AlterG Treadmill using patented NASA un-weighting technology, you have the ability to almost completely remove that extra stress on your knees instantly.
Why can this be so useful? It can be summed up in one word:
Efficiency
Instead of having to wait for pain to be reduced, then begin training once the symptoms are gone, you can now remove pain symptoms and train SIMULTANEOUSLY, saving time and making for a more efficient and effective Physical Therapy recovery program. And remember, when you’re on the AlterG Treadmill during Physical Therapy, there is minimal chance for your injury to get worse because you’re fully supported, which removes that mental trepidation that occurs with many of our patients when trying to return to activity.
With regards to training, for all my knee pain Physical Therapy patients, we work on three aspects, in order: step, stride length, and cadence.
As you get stronger through training, you can incrementally increase your body weight during your Physical Therapy sessions. Before you know it, you’ll be back to your regular running schedule at full capacity, and faster than if you had undergone a Physical Therapy program without the AlterG!
Dr. James Pumarada is a licensed Physical Therapist with over 18+ years of experience. He is a Sports Therapy Certified therapist, focusing on treating and training runners of all levels, and is a certified Vestibular therapist, specializing in the treatment of all dizziness, vertigo, and imbalance issues.
He is the co-owner of Complete Physical Rehabilitation, a Physical Therapy practice based in Elizabeth and Jersey City, NJ.