Dr. Stacie Barber Shares Her Favorite Ways to Keep Joints Healthy

When your joints are feeling great, you probably don’t think about them. It’s kind of like having a cold – you don’t think about how much you take breathing through your nose for granted until you can’t. Daily movements with pain-free joints are a lot like that. Only once your knees creak, your lower back tightens, or your shoulders stiffen do you wish there was something you could do. 

Good joint health is about more than addressing problems as they arise. Like any other fitness endeavor, joint health can be proactively nurtured to develop and maintain the mobility required to lead an active life. To shed light on how you can both rehabilitate painful joints, as well as prevent them in the first place, we turned to the expertise of physical therapist and founder of The Physio Fix, Dr. Stacie Barber. 

As a former gymnast who suffered multiple injuries and 11 orthopedic surgeries, Barber struggled many times over to return to her sport safely. This led her to her passion “to become a physical therapist that bridges the gap between rehab and performance.” After opening her own practice in 2017, she does just that, providing athletes of all kinds with affordable, personalized options to keep moving pain-free. We spoke with Barber to get the lowdown on her favorite tips for healthy, pain-free joints. 

1. Don’t Stop Moving

Barber says that her No. 1 tip above all else is to stay active and keep moving because “movement is medicine.” This tip applies even when you’re experiencing pain. 

“When you start having pain, don’t stop moving,” she stresses. “That’s the worst thing you could do. And rest – it’s not best. We don’t use the rest-ice-compress-elevate (RICE) model anymore. We don’t rest injuries. They need to be strengthened and tissues need time to heal, but if you take time off, you’ll become weaker, delaying your progress and recovery.” 

While Barber recommends staying active through an injury, it’s important to make sure you’re rehabbing things correctly – not just hitting the gym with a handful of random exercises. That’s where a physical therapist comes in. You want to work with a PT who will ensure you’re doing the right exercises, with the best dosage and resistance to allow you to return to your activities faster. 

If working with a physical therapist is out of the question either due to your location or budget, video appointments and digital programs like these can be a great alternative to traditional physical therapy.   

2. Utilize Movement Snacks 

Staying active sounds nice, but when you work a desk-bound job, it’s easier said than done. Barber recognizes this is a common struggle: “Sometimes it’s hard to fit it all in all the things you want to do (like mobility work, strength work, and cardio), with the demands of life, so I tell my patients to add in movement snacks.” 

Movement snacks – or quick little movement breaks throughout the day – make it easier to incorporate mobility work into your routine, even if you’re tight on time, Barber says. 

She asks her patients to “get up from their chair and do a couple of exercises using the wall, the chair itself, or whatever is available. This allows them to check off their mobility work. Then when they go into the gym, they can focus on their strength and their cardiovascular health.” 

3. Use Physical Therapy Preventatively 

If you’re reading this and thinking, “I’m not injured, so I don’t need physical therapy,” that’s where you’re wrong. While PT is typically used for rehab, Barber emphasizes that physical therapy is much more than “just treating injuries.” 

“I want people to come in for preventative reasons,” she says. “You go to your dentist every six months to get your teeth checked, so let’s get your body checked. We can give you specific exercises to help address any limitations and to prevent flare ups over the next six months,” she explains. 

“I work with a lot of people that come in without an injury because they want to get better at their sport or improve their quality of life. They want to do everything they can to remain injury-free.” 

In preventative cases like this, Barber says she takes patients through a formal assessment after asking questions like, ‘What do you want to work on?’ and ‘What are your goals?’ She notes that, “These are important things to ask that a lot of people just skim over. The clinician might have goals for the patient, but the patient has goals for themselves, too.” She emphasizes the need to customize treatment for each patient, keeping their athletic goals in mind. 

Sound like something you might be interested in? Give your joints a little love by checking out Barber’s programs to see how you can move more efficiently, prevent injury, and perform better in the gym. 

Want more from Dr. Stacie Barber? Work with her here, or follow her @thephysiofix. 

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