Our Favorite Equipment for Physical Therapy

Around our clinics, we have a fair amount of equipment that we incorporate into our physical therapy treatment programs for a variety of conditions. Here are just a few of our favorites!

Keiser Functional Trainer

Besides looking super sleek and taking up almost no floor space in the clinic, we love the Keiser Functional Trainer for its extreme versatility. It also uses pneumatic resistance, so the muscles remain active through the entire movement with minimal shock to the joints. In some ways, the Keiser is a standard cable machine but it also allows you to do things that other cable machines can’t. One example is both testing and training for power output. Let us explain: When you do a repetition on the Keiser, it gives you a reading in Watts that indicates the rate at which your work was done (essentially the speed of your movements). This can be very valuable, especially for athletes who perform a lot of rotational movements such as golf and softball/baseball.

We can measure power one side at a time, making the Keiser a great tool for injury prevention. We all know the importance of symmetry; well, this technology allows us to test rotation to the right/left and locate deficits on either side, giving you the information you need to know what to train for. It’s also effective for the lower body. If you’re a basketball player and you want to be able to jump off of both legs, we can test each of your legs one at a time to find out if they produce the same amount of power.

We use the Keiser in all phases of rehab. For those who are still in pain, the Keiser allows for super light resistance. For those who are in the “return to sport” phase, we can receive objective numbers in order to clear you back to your sport.

InBody Body Composition Analyzer

If a patient has goals of weight loss or strength training, the InBody machine is great for them. This machine can give you some really cool data to help you structure that goal.

The InBody Body Composition Analyzer provides your basal metabolic rate (the number of calories that you burn at rest), which is important to know before you work out. This will help you know how much you need to eat in relation to how much you need to burn. Rehab-wise, the limb segmental breakdown (right arm vs. left arm, right leg vs. left leg) is extremely helpful. If you have an injured leg, especially if it’s chronic, then there’s likely going to be some changes there in terms of your muscle mass. The InBody provides objective data that you can use to measure over time to make sure that we’re focusing on the right elements during your rehab and making things challenging enough to gain back muscle.

Even cooler, this is all done through electrical current (there are two sensors in each hand and two sensors in each foot). As you stand on what feels like a normal scale, the current goes through your body to determine what’s muscle, what’s fat and what’s bone, in just a couple of minutes.

Read more about the InBody Body Composition Analyzer

TRX

Another one of the most versatile pieces of equipment that we have, and one that may look especially familiar, is the TRX. Used for suspension training (all bodyweight training), it’s incredibly safe for all phases of rehab and for people of any age group. The TRX allows you to make things really simple or really challenging, depending on your personal condition and needs. You can target your upper body—great for those with shoulder issues who need to focus on shoulder blade strengthening—or lower body—someone with knee pain for example will be able to do a lot of assisted types of squats and can use the TRX as a helpful tool to progress from two legs to one. It’s also great for core work.

What else do we love? It’s portable and really quite simple: This amazing tool isn’t much more than a couple of ropes!

AeroPilates Reformer

In addition to being used for Pilates workouts, the reformer is something that we use on a daily basis with our patients. It’s low-impact and easy to adjust the intensity to match your condition (it has the ability to go from 25 to 75 pounds of resistance). You can perform upper body, lower body and core work. We probably use this most for helping patients get the leg strength that they need to squat. For those who can’t stand up to do a squat without pain, the reformer comes in handy to help them do a sort-of modified leg press. It’s a super effective tool used to progress patients to more functional, weight-bearing exercises.