Therapy Without the Therapist: 5 Exercises to Stay in Shape Like a Professional Would Expect

We get a lot of feedback from patients on their way out of the facility. Most laud us for helping them get better. Some begrudge us for being such hard taskmasters. Still, others thank us for our service but inform us that they wish they’d never had to see us in the first place.

I don’t blame them. The process as a whole involves either a major injury or severe medical downturn followed by several days of hospitalization, then up to months of rehabilitation. By the time they get to the clinic, they’ve had a lot of pain, anguish, and worry, accompanied by hospital food and a never-ending stream of new faces shod in medical clothing.

The patient’s discharge home is often a big concern. Will the patient flourish or at least subsist at home, or will they destabilize and return to the hospital? Worse, will they begin a slow decline that will eventually lead them back to the hospital and, ultimately, back to us?

To prevent this, we always equip patients with a home exercise program to help maintain their strength, endurance, and safety in the home setting.

An Ounce of Prevention

There’s another way to keep the doctor at bay. I can provide a home exercise program for you, dear reader, that keeps you from having to go into the hospital or rehab setting to begin with. As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of hospital food. The goal is to maintain strength, endurance, and balance to minimize hospital episodes.

These exercises work well for my patients, but you may want to consult with your medical provider to make sure they’re right for you.

5 Therapist Inspired Exercises to Keep the Therapist Away

1. Bodyweight Squats

The classic bodyweight squat is a magnificent way to maintain strength in your quadriceps and gluteal muscles. Squats strengthen the muscles that help you stand up, climb stairs, and stabilize your body while walking. These squats are the real deal—hard to perform at first but incredibly beneficial.

Step 1: Stand with your feet hip-width apart, with feet pointing forward.

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Step 2: Bend your knees and lower down until you reach 90 degrees of knee flexion. Be sure to “sit back” into the movement by pushing your hips back as you move to keep your knees from moving out in front of your toes. Keep your shoulders back and your head up.

Step 3: Return to standing and repeat the movement.

Step 4: Moving down and then back up counts as 1 repetition. Try to perform 3 sets of 12 repetitions, feeling free to modify sets and repetitions to best tailor for you.

Modifications: Can’t move down into 90 degrees of knee flexion? Go down as far as you can. Hold onto a chair or countertop to help with balance if needed.

Challenge Time: For more of a challenge, perform repetitions faster and keep going until you finally stall out.

I recommend bodyweight squats because they increase your sure-footedness and make it easier to stand, sit, and climb stairs.

2. Plank Shoulder Taps

The classic plank is another excellent exercise, but for our purposes, let’s spice it up a little. Instead of simply moving into plank position and then holding it, I invite you to do shoulder taps at the same time, placing even more emphasis on your core muscles. The two most neglected things on this planet are my houseplants and your core muscles—but that’s about to change.

Step 1: Start in the classic pushup position with your hands and feet touching the floor and your body in a straight line from your shoulders to your feet.

Step 2: Keeping your core engaged, reach across with your right hand to touch your left shoulder.

Step 3: Once you touch your shoulder, return your hand to the ground and repeat on the other side.

Step 4: Tapping your shoulder and placing your hand back down counts as 1 repetition. Try to perform 3 sets of 12 repetitions per side. You can perform all repetitions on one side or alternate sides.

3. Chair Dips

We’ve worked on powerful leg and core-building exercises—now let’s move to arms and shoulders. Chair dips are a modified form of the standard military dip and are highly effective for maintaining strong shoulders.

Step 1: Sit at the front edge of a stable chair.

Step 2: Place your palms on the surface of the chair and slide your bottom off, supporting your weight on your hands as you straighten your knees. Hold your arms so your elbows bend more to the rear than the sides.

Step 3: Slowly and carefully lower yourself until you reach 90 degrees of elbow flexion, then push back up.

Step 4: Moving down and back up counts as 1 repetition. Try to perform 3 sets of 12 repetitions. Modify sets and counts as much as needed to make them work for you.

Modification: Can’t dip very low? Just go as low as you can before coming back up.

Challenge Time: Want to kick it up a notch? Perform as many repetitions as you can before resting.

I’ve chosen this exercise as it works on the exact muscles in your arms and shoulders you use to push up from a chair. When legs get weak, the arms have to compensate, and this exercise makes the right muscles strong.

4. 3-Point Pectoral Stretch

We’ve all seen people in public walking hunched forward to varying degrees. Some are so far forward that their shoulders are almost horizontal. While there are many potential causes, one of the most pronounced reasons for this posture is tightness in the pectoral muscles. Over time, tight pectoral muscles can draw your shoulders forward, leading to a progressively worse “slumping” posture. Thus, let’s stretch those pecs out and put them in their place.

Step 1: Stand with your elbows out to the sides and hands up in an “I didn’t do it gesture,” pulling your arms and elbows back as far to the rear as you can to start stretching your chest muscles.

Step 2: Reach your arms up towards the ceiling as high as you can.

Step 3: Slowly lower and straighten your arms while pulling them back as far as you can, maintaining the stretch of your chest muscles. Hold for 1 second before returning to the starting position.

Step 4: Reaching up and bringing your arms down behind you counts as 1 repetition. Try to perform 3 sets of 12 repetitions.

Modifications: If you can’t reach up very high, you can progress straight from the “I didn’t do it” pose to the arms back and down position.

Loose pecs help the body maintain postural equilibrium, which is fantastic because consistently bad posture almost always grows worse, and worse than that, can eventually become permanent.

5. Seated Thoracic Rotation/Extension

The Sit ‘n Spin child’s toy is an old classic. This twisting exercise is great for keeping your thoracic and lumbar spine flexible and happy. It’s safe to perform and is performed in a well-controlled position.

Practice Tips: Keep your posture upright the whole time. Resist the temptation to slump instead of fully rotating your spine.

Step 1: Sit upright in a chair, all the way back, with your arms crossed high and your elbows pointing straight forward.

Step 2: Initiate movement by slowly rotating your shoulders to the right as far as you comfortably can. Hold for two seconds before returning to the starting position.

Step 3: Rotate left in the same way, making sure you keep your trunk upright.

Combined, these exercises can help you maintain your posture, flexibility, and strength the way a therapist would like you to. If there’s one thing that my years as a therapist have taught me, it’s that people who are healthy before they have to come to me often do best in therapy. Who knows, if you keep up with these exercises, you may never have to see me in the first place.