3D Movement and Rehab

If you're struggling with plantar fascia pain or cramping in your feet try using a lacrosse ball to massage out the cramps and painful restrictions in your feet.

3D movement and rehab gives all of our clients with foot and ankle pain lacrosse balls so they can do self treatment whenever they need it to relieve plantar fascia pain and cramping in the arches of the feet or calf muscles.

This is also a technique we advise our soccer players to perform weekly as a way of restoring mobility, bloodflow and dexterity into the feet after their get have been cramped into tight cleats.

We are regularly asked what's the best way to start strengthening my back?

The answer like most things in physical therapy is it depends.

Nearly 10% of the world lives with low back pain while 80% of people will experience low back pain at some point in their life. These stats might point to low back pain being a normal problem to have but it's typically a very treatable injury.

Depending on the type of back pain and the root causes patients may need to strengthen their core first, or their hips or restore motion to their spine first... The possibilities of what may need to be focused on initially is nearly endless.

But eventually everyone needs to restore mobility to their spine as the best they can. And then progress to restoring the strength of their spine through motion. This is where this exercise series comes in.

We see a lot of people who initially made some progress with traditional physical therapy, but eventually their progress plateaued because the physical therapy only focused on core strengthening or very simple table exercises. They come to us still complaining of stiffness or discomfort in their back. What we often find is they never actually trained their spine to flex and extend with loaded resistance.

This exercise is focused on restoring spinal mobility and then strengthening the spine through full ranges of motion.

"I can't squat without my back hurting."
"I keep stretching and strengthening my back and core but it still hurts when I squat."

Is Ankle stiffness causing my low back pain when I squat or play sports?

The answer is maybe.

We need about 40 degrees of on ground ankle dorsiflexion (ankle bending) to get through a full depth squat without putting undue stress on the low back. You can use the quick and easy thumbs up assessment to check your ankle mobility to determine if your ankle has good flexibility. If the knee can't touch the wall without the heel coming up then stiffness in your ankle might be causing you difficulty achieving good squat depth without stressing your low back.

The banded self ankle mobilization is one of the main exercises we use to help patients restore their ankle flexibility so they can get back to squatting pain free. If your ankle are stiff, try this exercise to restore your mobility to help you squat pain free.