Heather Lane's Blog Page

21Nov 2022 by Patrick Donovan

Why Am I Not Getting Stronger?

Exercise

So a lot of people come in and they say, why am I not getting stronger? And I've been doing X, Y, and Z and I can do 20, 30 reps of, let's say, a dead deadlift. Well, we're gonna learn something today that's called progressive tissue overload. It incorporates good form, the right dosage, and adding weights as necessary and most safely so you can make strength gains for a lifetime. So the movement I really enjoy teaching this concept is the deadlift. It strengthens muscles in your ankles, knees, and hips, and requires a great amount of stability through your back. , so this client of mine has been working on these movements for the better part of a year, and so we're going to kind of…

03Nov 2022 by Patrick Donovan

5 Exercises for Knee Strengthening with Osteoarthritis

Health content

Strength training is hard with knee pain. Trust me, I've had three knee surgeries, and often struggle with it too. This week, we are providing resources for people that are looking for osteoarthritis treatment at the gym safely and effectively. The exercises we'll be covering in this video are: Kitchen sink squat Heel rock back Bentover row, and Knee blocked squat. Knee Blocked Squats Too much force through the knees is often a cause of knee pain. We can use the prop of a box, door frame, or chair to encourage a backwards weight shift. This recruits the hamstrings and glutes to do their very important job. I like to try this exercise with folks that have knee pain with squatting, going from sitting to standing, and rising from…

26Sep 2022 by Patrick Donovan

Modify Your Risk of Chronic Disease

Health content

Most people are aware of the common risk factors for their health. Smoking, drinking, and eating unhealthy foods - all can contribute to chronic conditions. I enjoy having a beer with my friends, and I know that that might not always be good for me. It is important that these activities be weighed against the overall risk to your life. Today, we're going to tackle the biggest three risk factors over the next few videos. Today, we'll be focusing on aging. I would encourage you to just pay special attention to these as you go through your day. First, some important terms to define: Risk Factor: something that increases risk Chronic Disease: a broad term for a condition that lasts more than 1 year and requires ongoing medical attention. Aging I'm gonna…

24Aug 2022 by Patrick Donovan

Why Strong Bones Matter

Health content

Hi everyone, Dr. Donovan here. Really excited to share what we have today on why bones matter. It's something I educate people a lot on in the clinic; how their osteoporosis profile relates to what they can do, and what they maybe shouldn't do. All of these include lifestyle modifications and different ways of moving your spine and hips to help protect them over time. Most importantly, they lower your fall risk. Lowering your fall risk will mitigate any risk of acute fracture. When we discuss osteoporosis, we're talking about bone mineral density and osteopenia. It is most common in older adults and mainly postmenopausal women, but that doesn't mean you should stop caring about your bones even if you don't have a degenerative bone disease; it's something to maintain…

19Jul 2022 by Patrick Donovan

What One-Legged Standing Can Tell About Fracture Risk

Health content

The Purpose of This Test What one-legged standing can tell you is your fracture risk. We always hear how balance becomes an issue as we age, but at what point do we need to take balance training? You can watch the above video for a quick and dirty test that you can perform at home. From this one-legged standing test we can learn how to decrease the risk for: Future fracture, Osteoporosis complications, and Hip fractures In older adults. This demographic has the most far-reaching consequences in terms of disability-reduced quality of life and increased mortality. I know it all seems like bad news, but I've got some good news coming your way. Hip Fractures How do hip fractures occur to anyone from falls, so the more we can do…

22Jun 2022 by Patrick Donovan

Finding The Right Quad Strengthening Exercise

Health content

Today, we're going to find the right quad strengthening exercise for you. We want you to have the most precise leg strengthening variation that works for your strengthening routine. Let's take us through some real-life examples you've noticed in the past few years: You can only garden two hours before you need a break You can't quite keep up with your younger friend on a hike. You're in the functional category of aging, and you're ready to increase your strength. So you performed the 30-second sit-to-stand test from the last video and you scored 11 reps that place you securely in the functional category of aging fitness. So why not make a goal of 15 reps to place you in the fun category? So now that you've measured your quad…

31May 2022 by Patrick Donovan

Baseline Measures of Health | Heather Lane PT – Physical Therapist in Denver, CO

Health content

What's your baseline activity level? Are you getting 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity per week? How about the two days of multiple segment strength training? A quarter of adults and eight percent of older adults achieve the recommended dose of exercise per week. Well, if not, you're not alone. Only a quarter of adults and eight percent of older adults achieve the recommended dose of exercise per week. Today we are going to hone in not just on overall fitness or activity level, but the importance of baseline measures. We're going to look at one test: the 30-second sit-to-stand test. Sit to Stand Test This test captures important information on: Lower body strength, Static balance, Quad endurance, Spinal posture, Hip strength, And joint motion. This test is commonly used…

18May 2022 by Patrick Donovan

Building Physical Resilience Part 2

Health content

"Life is not about how fast you run, or how high you climb, but how well you bounce back." - Vivian Komori I've always referred to this when talking to our patients. We want to be able to bounce right back to where we started when we have a negative stressor. These negative events and setbacks in our life are inevitable, but we want to pop back up. I encourage you all to think differently ahead of your potential next setback. With aging, these setbacks get even harder to bounce back from. When people with less resiliency have a setback, they don't quite bounce back right to where they started. Whether they're in the hospital for a night, or something negative happened emotionally in their lives, it's hard to bounce back.…

25Apr 2022 by Patrick Donovan

How to Build Physical Resilience

Health content

Physical resilience is our ability to bounce back following a negative health stressor. Whether it's stress-related or a physical injury, building a reservoir of resilience allows room for setbacks in life. Health stressors come in many different shapes and sizes. They could be the emotional toll of taking care of your spouse, they could be an acute injury or even cancer treatment. These setbacks are unavoidable and often unpredictable. So how do we physically bounce back from events we can't even prepare for? We become a rubber band. The strongest most, flexible rubber band we can. A rubber band encapsulates our collective strength flexibility endurance and overall fitness the more we can pull our bodies safely in each direction, the less likely we are to encounter a pulled hamstring, back…

18Apr 2022 by Patrick Donovan

Gait Speed as the Sixth Vital Sign

ankle, foot, Health content

Hello everyone Dr. Donovan here and today, we will be talking about travel speed as the sixth vital sign. The 5 commonly accepted vital signs are: Blood pressure, Heart rate, Oxygen saturation, Respiration, And temperature. One of the biggest things I have observed in my work is that any adult's walking or hiking behaviors are a marker of their health. You can also find greater control over your mental health and environmental control by improving your travel speed, and measuring the speed of movement according to the predicted health condition. There is something to be gained by improving your gait speed for everyone. For example, if you have a single gait speed, which is another name for walking speed, you can potentially increase it for an overall positive impact. There…