My name is Becca and I work for SOL Physical Therapy, but I’m not a physical therapist.
I’m curing the damage in my arm/shoulder/neck from 5 years of computer-induced repetitive strain injury (RSI). A few weeks ago, I promised I’d show you my home exercise program, and today I’m making good on that promise.
Now that you’ve witnessed me in all my home exercise program glory, here are three truths you should know about those exercises.
Truth #1: It took me about 20 minutes to complete all my reps.
Even though my Karate Kid style montage makes my HEP look like breeze, it took me about 20 minutes to complete from start to finish.
Every single exercise requires that I sit and think about the way my body is moving, and that takes me a lot of time. And (whether this is good thing or not), I find myself doing more reps than assigned because I don’t count the ones I feel I did with poor body posture or with incorrect movement.
Truth #2: Watching myself do my HEP on film has been really helpful.
I filmed myself because I thought it would be the best way to show you what I’ve been up to. But it’s had a serious side effect of showing me how well or how poorly I’m executing some of these exercises.
For example, in the video, when I’m crunching over the tennis balls, I can see that my form isn’t quite right. Instead of generating that movement from my abs, I can see my neck collapse.
Because filming myself has allowed me to see what I’m actually doing versus what I think I’m doing, I actually feel more confident in what I’m doing while I’m at home.
Truth #3: Since I filmed, I’ve been given several new exercises to do.
Physical therapy is a constantly evolving process. Based on my case, my motivation to do my HEP, and my feedback about how everything is going, my SOL PT keeps giving me new home exercises for my program.
As she adds exercises, she always reminds me that I don’t need to do all of them. I should mix them up, and use the ones I feel are going to most beneficial to me on any given day. I have a feeling when this is all done, I will have quite the arsenal of exercises to combat and prevent pain from RSI in the future.
I’m stoked to be on this journey and I definitely can’t wait to continue!
Important PS: These 6 exercises were prescribed to me to help cure my particular case of RSI. Although I imagine what I’m going through is pretty common, everybody is different. If you’re interested to see if these exercises (or perhaps other exercises) could help relieve your RSI pain please contact us at SOL.
