Land and Sea PT

pt working on clients hip

Proximal Hamstring Tendinopathy: The Hip Pain That Feels Like a Sitting Problem

/ Hip Pain, Pain & Recovery

Stretching more, resting more, and waiting for the pain to go away is a common approach people take when dealing with proximal hamstring tendinopathy. Unfortunately, this strategy often does not address the actual problem. The missing piece is usually progressive loading: gradually rebuilding the tendon’s ability to tolerate stress and return to normal activity. Where […]

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physical therapist working with client

Sitting Up Straight Is Not Going to Fix Your Neck

/ Neck & Back Pain, Pain & Recovery

The advice many people with neck pain and nerve symptoms receive, whether from a well-meaning family member, an online article, or even a healthcare provider, is some version of “fix your posture.” Keep your shoulders back. Sit up straight. Stop slouching. For people dealing with neck pain and nerve symptoms, this can be one of

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physical therapist working on patients leg

The Boom-Bust Trap: The Most Common Mistake People Make With Quad Tendon Pain

/ Pain & Recovery, Uncategorized

Resting until your knee feels better is one of the most common mistakes people make with quad tendon pain. It seems logical: pain means something is wrong, and if something is wrong, you should stop doing the activity that hurts. The problem is that tendon pain does not always follow that logic. If you have

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physical therapist treating ab pain

Your Abdominal Strain Is Not a Hernia — And the Difference Matters a Lot

/ Pain & Recovery, Uncategorized

An abdominal muscle strain and a hernia can feel surprisingly similar. However, treating the wrong condition with the wrong approach can make things much worse. If you’ve been searching for answers about your abdominal pain and found yourself somewhere between “pulled muscle” and “I don’t know what this is,” this article will help clear things

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physical therapist working with client

The Reason Your Core Strain Keeps Coming Back Is Not Bad Luck

/ Pain & Recovery, Uncategorized

Core muscle strain recovery often fails for one simple reason: people return to activity before the muscle has rebuilt the capacity to handle the demands being placed on it. The tissue may feel better, but feeling better does not always mean it is fully prepared. Understanding why the strain happened in the first place is

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physical therapist working on client

Surgery for Sciatica Gets Similar Long-Term Results to Physical Therapy

/ Neck & Back Pain, Pain & Recovery

When someone has dealt with radiating leg pain for weeks or months and nothing seems to be helping, surgery can start to feel like the obvious answer. Remove the disc problem. Free the nerve. Finally move on. That thought process makes sense. But research on sciatica surgery tells a more complicated story; one that is

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physical therapist working on client shoulder

Exercise Is Not What You Do Before Surgery — It’s the Treatment for Most Rotator Cuff Problems

/ Pain & Recovery, Shoulder Pain

Many people come into the clinic thinking something like this: “I’ve been doing exercises for a few weeks, but they’re not working, so I probably need surgery.” The problem is that this way of thinking has it backwards. For most rotator cuff problems, exercise therapy is the primary treatment, not just something you try before

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physical therapist working on clients knee

Knee Pain: It’s Not About Bad Exercises, It’s About Capacity

/ Knee Pain, Pain & Recovery

One of the most counterproductive things you can do with knee pain is stop loading the knee entirely. It feels like the safest option: rest it, avoid anything that hurts, and wait for it to heal. But patellofemoral pain doesn’t usually improve with complete avoidance. In many cases, removing all load actually reduces the knee’s

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physical therapist working on patients shoulder

Your shoulder pain probably isn’t “tendonitis,” and that distinction actually matters.

/ Pain & Recovery, Shoulder Pain

If you’ve been told you have biceps tendonitis because of pain in the front of your shoulder, the diagnosis is likely using outdated terminology. Tendonitis implies that inflammation is the primary problem. However, research, including a well-known 2015 paper, suggests that biceps tendon pain is usually not driven by inflammation. Instead, it’s most often the

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