Lets 'Rebuild A Better You' together!

Throughout any physical therapy journey there are three stages.  At Physicality they're referred to as the 3 P's: The Prep Stage, The Pain Stage and The Pass Stage.

• The Prep Stage: This is the visit with your doctor directly after surgery, or your appointment if surgery isn't necessary.  They set the tone for the process to come. If it's just a regular appointment, most likely where they've already had you take x-rays or an MRI, and determined surgery isn't necessary then it's pretty brief with an overview of the basic plan without any finer details.  If you've had surgery the good news here is that you'll get much more detail in the next stages of the process and you'll be pushed from day 1 to start achieving range of motion goals. The bad news, you start The Pain Stage basically at the same time.
• The Pain Stage: This stage usually covers the entirety of your therapy from the time the drugs where off at the hospital. Ultimately, this is at its height during the first month or so of your rehab when the therapist do their most important, albeit sadistic, work. This is the biggest area of need for a patient to hit benchmarks with their recovery in order to maintain proper pathway to a full recovery. However, it is definitely the most painful time in the rehab process because of the excess strain on the ever so tender joints and muscles that have been, no so delicately, traumatized during the surgical operation.*
• The Pass Stage: This is where you get passed around from PT to PT, to PTA back to a different PT. Mostly in charge of keeping your own count during exercises and not entirely sure if you're doing them correctly because, "it kind of hurts, but maybe that's because I'm recovering. Or maybe it's not supposed to, but I'm going to keep going because they said 20 reps. Wait, what rep am I on? Oh well, I'll call it good I guess. Where my therapist?" There are many more questions than answers in this stage.

For anyone who has been a patient in a physical therapy clinic (hopefully your had a unique experience that doesn't reflect what's been described above) the exit process is pretty unanimous. You receive a stack of papers with examples of all the exercises you did, usually with pretty blurry photos and bad descriptions, a handshake, pat on the back and a 'Good luck' wave goodbye.

What's missing is a 4th P. And at Physicality it is considered maybe the most important stage of the entire process. That stage is called the Plan Stage and is where Physicality steps in a thrives.

• The Plan Stage: This seems to be the most important stage because it feels like the most vulnerable stage of your recovery process. Multiple aspects come into play here.  You've just finished your approved session through your insurance (usually about 10-20 depending on your coverage) and unless you are approved for more, which doesn't happen often, you're out on your own with that trusted stack of exercise papers.  But there is a huge bridge to cross until you feel comfortable one your own.  Physicality builds this bridge with you and helps you navigate across with a detailed and customized plan launched from your last PT appointment all the way through to you feeling comfortable working out on your own.  If you want to continue training we welcome that and can continue teeing up goals and knocking them down, but the key is to make sure you understand the rebuilding process to get you not just back on track, but to a whole new level.

*If you didn't have a surgical operation that led to physical therapy, this stage doesn't rear its ugly head nearly as much, but it doesn't go away entirely.  Physical therapy isn't meant to be fun. It does have it's necessity, and we believe this stage is the differentiator between someone just getting to the point the can live with their new body limitations and someone who is able to make a full recovery, and be even better than they were originally in many cases