What are stabilization exercises?
Stabilization exercises target the muscles, tendons and ligaments that play a supportive role in your everyday movements. They are the lesser known muscles and tissues that lie underneath your major muscles and meet and work together in complex ways at your joints.
The job of these stabilizers is to create a solid foundation and hold joints in place when you’re moving muscles. Because they are deeper inside the body and used differently, they can be harder to activate in training or therapy. Stability exercises target these specifically to increase the strength, mobility and elasticity of these tissues so that you can move without pain, discomfort or injury.
Why do I need to do stability exercises?
Stabilization exercises are foundational to any physical therapy or training program. Your body is full of stabilizers — most notably in your core, pelvis, shoulders and knees. An injury or pain to any of these areas may require stabilization exercises to rebuild foundational strength before (or in conjunction with) strengthening exercises[1] .
Stability exercises can help you overcome:
- Lower back pain
- Pelvic pain
- Knee injuries like ligament tears, chronic pain, torn meniscus and dislocated knee cap
- Ankle injuries such as sprains, tendonitis or achilles ruptures
- Shoulder issues including tendonitis, frozen shoulder, dislocation or rotator cuff tears
- Nagging running injuries like IT band syndrome, shin splints and patellofemoral syndrome
By working on your instability, you can also prevent future injury to the unstable joint or area. And stabilization exercises targeted to one part of your body can improve instability issues in another part. Everything is connected like links in a chain. For example, stabilization exercises targeting your buttocks and hips can improve knee stability and relieve knee pain.
What should I expect during stability training?
Working on stability with your physical therapist helps you understand your body, your condition or injury, and how different muscles work together as you move. Since many of the muscles, tendons and ligaments are harder to target, you’ll learn specific movements that work them.
Your stabilizers are primarily slow-twitch muscles. You can expect your stability training to include exercises using bodyweight, lower weight or resistance bands. With an emphasis on form and stability, you’ll perform more reps, more slowly.
Your PT will also challenge your stability as you progress, moving from exercises on a flat surface to some on uneven or unstable objects. For example, you may do exercises while standing on a BOSU ball for a leg injury or do push-ups on a plate or ball for anything from the wrist to shoulder.
How will all this improve my stability?
Stabilization is all about building a strong base so that you can keep moving and avoid injury (or re-injury). Stabilization exercises will help restore your movement, flexibility and baseline strength in your shoulder, knee, back, hips or other area. You’ll also experience:
- Reduced pain, muscle imbalance and strain
- Improved balance, coordination, efficiency and form or posture
- Better control through movement
After completing physical therapy, your unstable muscle or joint will function normally, with little to no discomfort. Under the guidance of your PT, you should be able to return to work, restart everyday activities or progress into further strengthening or exercise programs.