Preventative sports medicine for a manual laborer?

January 14, 2024 10:45 AM

Spouse has a manual labor career. Is there some kind of medical practitioner who can do stuff like assess his strength and balance in detail, and make recommendations based on the work he does? The goal being to reduce the typical aches & pains and wear & tear that come with the job. Looking to maintain/enhance wellbeing based on his specific body, not for injury treatment or general "don't lift with your back" advice. I'm having trouble figuring out the right terms to search! Does anyone have experience getting this kind of preventive care?

Spouse is VERY fit, safety conscious, and experienced but it's an exhausting job that eventually wrecks the people doing it in one way or another. Hoping to help him find the kind of person who can point out (in specific, job-relevant ways) what he can do to improve & protect his body. Like strengthening a particular muscle or improving a particular kind of flexibility. A holistic approach looking at his diet and stuff would be cool, but above all else i don't want to waste his time going to people who can only offer basic, generic, general advice. So far I'm just finding a lot of groups doing injury treatment & rehabilitation.

posted by Baethan to Health & Fitness (4 answers total)

You could try seeking a physiotherapist, and having regular appointments with them. They should be able to do mobility checks and recommend strengthening exercises, put a stop to any niggles before they become bigger issues, educate for awareness between sessions, massage out tension points too, etc.

I had a friend doing full-time circus performance training, and they were able to find a phsyio with a personal background in both competative sport and dance, (a few of the physios at that practice were ex professional athletes). So the physio was in a much better position to talk about weaknesses over isolated parts of their extended mobility, and also recognise 'base level' or 'would like to achieve' for the circus performer was not what you'd call typical.

As with all these things, there are great physios, and not so great. But your partner should be able to find one they gel with well, and with regular appointments it can certainly be preventative & educational.

Physios of course can also do rehabilitation should something not work out on the job one day too.
posted by many-things at 11:04 AM on January 14 [1 favorite]

The name of the medical specialty is physical medicine and rehabilitation, PM&R. Look for a doctor who did a residency in that. Way to be proactive, good job!
posted by 8603 at 11:45 AM on January 14 [2 favorites]

Another search term might be functional fitness. Or occupational therapy.
posted by lulu68 at 1:14 PM on January 14

Occupational therapist. They will be happy to help habilitate instead of rehabilitate a body for once.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 1:38 PM on January 14 [3 favorites]