This is a standard way of stretching the lower back. Pulling the left arm towards the opposite direction helps stretch the lower disc of your back. Holding that position for a number of minutes assures the quality of which you are stretching. After so many minutes, you turn on your other side and do the same with the other arm, this is so you can assure you are stretching both lower discs of your lower back. Having personal experience of straining the lower back, I have had to do this stretch many times. It takes first-hand experience, for someone to know the real reason behind as to why physical therapy helps as much as it does.
Physical therapists provide help for their patients by working with disabling conditions such as low-back, arthritis, heart disease, fractures, head injuries and cerebral palsy. They restore, maintain, and promote overall fitness and health.
Physical therapy is only for injured athletes. Many others, especially those older that 55 attend for certain reasons. As you get older, a group of conditions occur involoving joints of the body, called arthritis. Arthritis is the leading cause to disability for those older than a certain age. Many also go to physical therapy to recover from a surgery of some kind. They do a variety of stretches to build up that area of which they had surgery on. As you can see, there are many reasons as to why people attend physical therapy.
The most common reason as to why people go to physical therapy is to get healed quicker so they can finish out a sports season and heal faster and healthier while also moving on with their life without pain and enjoying the life they were meant to live. It can be hurtful to many, especially the elderly, when it comes to that time where you cant really climb stairs anymore or walk around as much as you could before. It just reminds you of how old you’re getting and some don’t really like to be reminded of that. It is a sentimental subject for all and so most people like to fix that and attend physical therapy so that time comes later that expected. Imagine your only 5 or 6 years old and your grandma or grandpa can’t pick you up and swing you in their arms. It saddens you, but just think how sad they must be that they can’t lift their grandchild and hold them tight in their arms. It is times like those finally pushes those over the edge and why physical therapy sounds so appealing.
Sources:
http://images.google.com/imgres?
imgurl=http://www.sfsu.edu/~bulletin/noindex/0304/programs/pg431_physical_therapy.
Photos:
www.sfsu.edu/…/0304/programs/physicat.htm
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