Whose Fault Is It That You're Not Doing Your Home Exercise Program?
Over the weekend, Jessica and I went to talk to a group of pregnant and postpartum people. We talked all about the pelvic floor's role in pregnancy, birth and postpartum recovery. At the end of the talk, we got a hilarious but brilliant question.
The story and question went something like this: I had urinary incontinence and pain after my first pregnancy and went to PT -my pain got worse, but my leakage didn’t. With that said, I never did my home exercises that my PT assigned me. So whose fault is it? Mine? Or my PT's?
She asked it much more thoughtfully, but that was the gist. After laughing about this for a moment, we had really great discussion that I wanted to share with you all. Whether you're a PT struggling to get their patient’s to stick with their home program or a person struggling to stick with a home exercise program that was assigned to you, this is for you.
For my full, in depth response, check out our recent Youtube video. For a summary, read on. So whose fault is is that you're not doing your home exercise program? Let's start with some caveats. There are a million reasons someone may not do their home program, including things like:
physical illness in the household
home, baby, family emergencies
mental health struggles
responsibilities and priorities that require attention and time
But assuming that you are in PT because you want to be, and this is in fact the time in your life that you've decided you are ready to prioritize physical recovery, there are still a few things that need to be true in order for you to stick with the dang program.
The program needs to be realistic. You need to be able to realistically, consistently complete your home exercises. One of the most important factors for realistic, consistent work is time. If you have 10 minutes daily to consistently complete your exercises, you will not stick with a program that takes 30 minutes. You just won't. So how do we arrive at a realistic program you can perform consistently?
You need to accurately and honestly assess how much time you have to give on a daily basis.
You need to tell your PT how much time that is.
They need to hear you and create a program within those bounds.
And then you two need to continue communicating week to week about whether you were actually right about how much time you have and whether the program they created actually takes as long as they think it does.
Notice how important the relationship between you and your PT is. Notice how it's not your PT creating a "perfect" program that lives in a vacuum. Notice how it's not about punishing yourself for only having X amount of minutes. And notice how those steps above leave room for collaboration and modification throughout the entirety of your physical therapy process.
It's OK if you guessed wrong and you thought you could do 30 minutes a day and you realized you can actually only commit 15. It's OK if your PT thought their program would only take 15 minutes but it actually takes you 30. What isn't OK is if you two aren't communicating these things to one another.
For more ways to create a realistic, consistent program, watch our video above. For the one question I ask every single one of my patients to help me create that program WITH them, not FOR them, watch our video above.
TL;DR Physical therapy is a collaborative effort. Whose fault is it if you don't do your exercises? It's a failing in the relationship between the two of you, but it's a solvable one. It's both of yours and neither of yours all at the same time.
Lady Bird PT specializes in helping people manage pregnancy pains, prepare for birth and recover postpartum. We work with folks in-person in Austin, TX and globally online. Want to work with us? Contact us here or call 512-766-2694.