With the start of spring, many of us begin planning our gardens, including weeding, raking, and preparing for planting. Gardening has many health benefits, but injuries can occur. The low back can be particularly susceptible to injury during gardening as bending, lifting, and squatting can cause you to twist your body into awkward positions or to overstretch, leading to muscle strains or sprains. Check out our 8 tips to prevent low back pain this gardening season!

Are you setting resolutions for the new year? Too often, we name aspirational resolutions without having a clear plan to achieve them. This year, try using the SMART goal setting framework to help you create specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timebound fitness goals for 2024. Check out our infographic to learn more!

Winter sports involve dynamic athletic activities engaged in in cold weather and packed snow and ice, heightening the risk of injury significantly. Common winter sports injuries include knee ligament and meniscus tears, wrist fractures and sprains, concussions, and shoulder injuries like dislocations or rotator cuff tears. Physical therapists can help winter sports participants recover effectively from injury and return to winter sports. Check out our 10 tips for winter sports injury prevention!

The holiday season is upon us! Many of us are participating in holiday work events, shopping, traveling, and gatherings with family and friends. The holiday season brings with it an often hectic pace and highly palatable and sugary foods, which can derail your healthy eating plan and regular exercise routine. Check out our infographic highlighting 10 holiday health and fitness tips to help you enjoy the holiday season while maintaining a healthy lifestyle and preventing injury!

Mangiarelli Rehabilitation physical therapy assistant Patti demonstrates three exercises to improve posture. Good posture refers to proper alignment of the body in static and dynamic positions, holding the body against gravity with the least strain and tension on your muscles, joints, and ligaments. Physical therapists can assess and address any postural impairments, designing a personalized posture training program involving stretching, targeted strengthening, body mechanics instruction, and manual therapy.

Check our our infographic debunking 5 common physical therapy myths! October is National Physical Therapy Month, a month to celebrate and recognize the dedication of each of our physical therapists and physical therapy assistants at Mangiarelli Rehabilitation and provide education about the field of physical therapy. At Mangiarelli Rehabilitation, our focus is to provide evidence-based, patient-centered rehabilitative care customized to each patient’s specific needs, condition, and goals. However, there are a number of myths and misconceptions about physical therapy.

During autumn, many of us engage in outdoor tasks to prepare our homes and yards for the winter, including raking copious amounts of leaves. Raking leaves can be quite physically demanding, requiring repetitive movements like pushing, pulling, lifting, twisting, and turning that can place biomechanical stress on the low back, shoulders, and neck. It’s important to take steps to prevent injury while raking leaves and prepare your body for the physical demands of raking. Check out our 6 tips to prevent leaf raking injuries this autumn!

The month of September is Healthy Aging Month, a month to promote ways individuals can stay healthy as they age. One of the best ways to support healthy aging is regular exercise under the guidance of a physical therapist. Physical therapists are experts in movement and exercise prescription, creating customized exercise programs to maintain and improve older adults’ balance, strength, and coordination and prevent falls.

Check out our 7 tips for back-to-school backpack safety! Backpacks, when worn correctly, are designed to distribute the weight of the load evenly across the body’s muscles. However, many children carry backpacks incorrectly or that are too heavy. Carrying a backpack can have significant biomechanical and physiological impacts on the wearer during a critical time in a child’s growth, placing undue stress on the body, changing posture, and contributing to injuries of the back, neck, and shoulders

Fall sports conditioning serves as a foundation upon which the sports season’s success is built and can help to reduce the number of in-season injuries. Fall sports conditioning involves a program of weight training and aerobic sport-specific conditioning that allows the athlete to slowly acclimate to the demands of the sport by gradually increasing the intensity and volume of their training over time. Check out our 8 tips for safe fall sports conditioning!

Check out our latest blog highlighting 10 tips for exercising in the cold. Exercising outdoors, even in winter, can be very beneficial. Exercising in the cold can actually help you burn more calories, enhance your endurance, positively affect your metabolism, and improve your mental health. However, it is important to take precautions when exercising outdoors in the cold to stay safe. Check out our 10 tips to safely exercise outdoors in the cold!

Aging can be accompanied by physiological changes in the body that may limit your physical function, strength, balance, and mobility. However, research has shown that physical exercise can prevent age-related decline, delay loss of physical function, and reduce the risk of fall-related injuries. Physical therapy can help slow the aging process through customized and targeted exercise interventions that help seniors maintain and improve strength, function, mobility, balance, and vitality safely.

Swelling is a natural part of the inflammatory process after an injury to help protect the injured area and facilitate healing as the body sends white blood cells and supportive fluids to the injured site to repair and heal. However, prolonged swelling can limit your range of motion and negatively affect your muscular strength. It is important to manage and limit swelling with the help of a physical therapist. Check out our 7 tips to manage swelling after injury!

Check out our January 2023 Newsletter, highlighting tips for managing arthritis this winter, wellness program update, winter donation thank you, and meniscus tear recovery with physical therapy.

Check out our 8 tips to manage arthritis this winter. Arthritis is a progressive chronic condition that involves inflammation, swelling, pain, and stiffness in one or more joints and is the leading cause of joint pain in the United States. Winter can exacerbate arthritic pain and stiffness due to the colder temperatures, precipitation, and decreased barometric pressure. Maintaining a regular exercise routine in winter is a key component of managing your arthritis, increasing your mobility, and decreasing your pain and stiffness.

Regular exercise is an essential component of healthy aging, helping seniors maintain independence and improve their physical and mental health. Exercise has numerous benefits for older adults, including improving muscle strength, building bone density, enhancing mobility and balance, and slowing age-related cognitive decline. Experts recommend that older adults engage in moderate-intensity aerobic exercise 150 minutes a week, strength train twice a week, and engage in weekly balance and flexibility training.

Carrying a backpack can have significant biomechanical, physiological, and discomfort impacts on the wearer, placing undue stress on the body, changing posture, and leading to back, neck, and shoulder pain. It’s essential that parents take steps to prevent backpack-related musculoskeletal pain in their children this school year. Check out our ergonomic tips for backpack safety!

Hiking is a fun outdoor activity to engage in with family and friends throughout the summer and has numerous health benefits. However, hiking can be arduous, placing significant physical stress on the body as you navigate varied terrain and high temperatures. Check out our tips for preventing common hiking injuries like knee pain, ankle sprains, and heat exhaustion and what to do to ensure a safe hike this summer!

Check out our infographic on the health benefits of exercise! Exercise is a critical component of a healthy lifestyle. Consistent exercise not only can prevent diseases like diabetes or cardiovascular disease but can also help you manage these chronic conditions and maintain function, endurance, and mobility. It is recommended to engage in at least 150 minutes of aerobic exercise each week, or 30 minutes a day, and strength train at least two times per week.

As we prepare to enter the new year, it’s the perfect time to set realistic goals for a healthier, happier 2022 using the SMART goal-setting framework. Too often, we set undefined and unsustainable resolutions that die out by February. Instead, we propose crafting a plan of smaller steps to achieve goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. Check out our breakdown of how to build a SMART goal and our 8 suggestions for 2022 health resolutions!