It’s very frustrating when I see a patient who clearly hasn’t been keeping up with their home exercise program. It’s frustrating because it’s not that they can’t do the program I’ve assigned them. It’s not that the program is too hard. It’s that they don’t think they have the time to do it.
Of course there are exceptions and I know the patients that are indeed hard pressed for any free time. However, the majority of these patients who claim to have no time for exercise actually have the time. They just choose to use that time for other things.
They choose to sleep an extra hour in the morning instead of getting up and walking. They choose to watch that extra hour of television instead of hitting up the gym. They choose to surf the web instead of doing the exercises assigned to them.
The truth is, if you’re serious about getting healthier faster, you will make the time to do what it takes to properly rehabilitate. If you’re not serious about getting healthy, or expect it to happen magically, then you will find ways to distract yourself from the work you need to put in to get healthy.
A physical therapist can only do so much and give you so many tools to get better. In the end, you play the biggest role in your rehabilitation and health. So if you find yourself saying “I just don’t have time to work out” ask yourself if “why don’t I have time?” If the answer is something like watching the game or that you’re too tired, then you need to reprioritize your time.
