14241 SW 120 ST Suite #107
Miami, FL 33186
Miami, FL 33186
After experiencing a spinal cord injury (SCI), it is normal for survivors to worry about what the future holds. Some mundane activities, such as walking or climbing the stairs, may be much more challenging now or even impossible. Survivors can face a difficult and demanding road to recovery ahead. Physical therapy and rehabilitation are vital to your healing and recovery process. Some patients will require more focused spinal cord injury rehabilitation in Miami to help them learn to walk again and return to everyday life.
If you, or a loved one, are a spinal cord injury survivor, you may experience a low interest in life or notice signs of depression. Feeling a little down is normal after a significant change in your life. But with proper help, physical therapy, and rehabilitation, you can eventually get back on your feet and start living independently again.
A recent study shows that Nordic walking shows immense potential in developing and improving a person’s ability to carry out activities of daily living. While the study focuses on patients with heart disease, and there isn’t much research on Nordic walking and SCI, it suggests that it can be beneficial for improving long-term functional capacity. This routine is a more advanced kind of walking exercise that involve the muscles in both the upper and lower body, making recovery efforts worth every sweat.
Nordic walking is a low-impact, yet intensive, exercise that uses a specially designed walking pole that helps support the body and reduce the risk of falling. This type of exercise places less stress on the joints and muscles and can help to improve balance and coordination and increase muscle strength and endurance, even for spinal cord injury survivors. The whole nordic walking routine equates to swimming which puts all your major muscles to work. This training takes the weight off your joints and engages your upper body, which improves your muscle coordination.
Experts believe that the use of a pole help engages and utilize the upper limb muscles, which are generally not used in walking, making nordic walking intensive yer low impact.
SCI survivors can gain many health benefits from this routine, including:
By removing the pressure and stress on your lower body joints through the poles, you can increase your exercise capacity and engage more muscles and connective tissues.
Nordic walking can help increase the amount of oxygen you breathe while engaging in intense exercise. Your body gets more energy to use when you inhale more oxygen, which boosts your physical fitness.
This type of exercise does not limit to improving your lower body but also makes your upper body muscles work leading to increased muscle strength. In addition, nordic walking can potentially put your significant muscles to work. This includes the legs, buttocks, core, shoulders, and arms.
Nordic walking also influences your spinal posture and shows immense potential to improve upper and lower body strength and balance.
Exercise, in general, can boost your mood as you release happy hormones. Incorporating a variety of options for your spinal cord injury rehabilitation in Miami can bring excitement and enjoyment as you progress in your routine, which generally boosts your overall mood. Nordic walking outdoors, with a scenic view, can also lower your stress levels and help reduce depression and anxiety symptoms.
A study shows that nordic walking can significantly help improve muscular strength and flexibility and aerobic endurance capacity. When you do aerobic exercise and band resistance training combined, you can experience the same effect when you do nordic walking.
The critical difference between the two routines is that nordic walking usually takes less time than conventional walking accompanied by band-based resistance exercises. This is because poles already engage the upper body while working the lower body.
Additionally, SCI survivors will require a well-rounded training program consisting of resistance, aerobic, and flexibility exercises to improve muscle mass, muscular strength, and flexibility.
Nordic and regular walking can benefit you depending on your needs and your body’s capacity. For example, if your therapist sees the need for you to work on your upper body strength to support your recovery, nordic walking can help you to a great extent. And if normal walking is sufficient for your needs, you will reap its benefits. We recommend you talk to your therapist about these two options and what can help you the most as you plan your routine.
Nordic walking has shown great potential in gait retraining. Therapists have seen improved outcomes in gait training in terms of speed, stride, arm swing, walking tolerance, and normalizing gait patterns. Therapists may see the need for patients who need to work on their balance and flexibility to engage in nordic walking. This exercise can also help improve postural stability, stride length, gait pattern, and variability.
Regardless of the patient’s injury extent, gait training is recommended. It’s a crucial component of physical therapy and spinal cord injury rehabilitation in Miami. We are equipped with recovery therapists and different training devices to support your needs. In addition, our physical rehabilitation facility is committed to providing SCI and paralysis survivors with varying wellness programs to help them recover and eventually reclaim their lives and independence through intense, exercise-based programs designed to fit their needs.
Retraining your walking muscles and your body coordination is essential in helping you regain control of your body and, eventually, reclaim your life. With proper support and guidance, SCI survivors whose walking was affected will eventually regain confidence in their strength and abilities.
We at iAM ABLE provide unique recovery routines customized for your needs. It is part of our goal to help you achieve the best possible advancement in your recovery from spinal cord injuries. And we’d like to help you even outside our facility. So we’d like to give you this book about the 7 Unbelievably Important Steps to Take to Thrive after Paralysis for free to help you mentally prepare for your journey to recovery. You will encounter many challenges in your SCI recovery, and we’d like to do our best to be there for you every step.
Grab our free e-book 7 Unbelievably Important Steps to Take to THRIVE after Paralysis by clicking the image below.
