How Gait Training Speeds Up Your Recovery Process

• Strengthens muscles and joints. Having weak lower extremities means you'll have trouble walking or standing. Strengthening exercises might be incorporated into gait training. This will help make the muscles and joints on your lower limbs to be able to support your body.
• Boosts endurance. Having lower endurance reduces your capability to perform certain actions properly. Gait training starts with basic exercises which gradually increase in difficulty and length. Performing these exercises will increase your endurance over time.
• Normalizes your gait pattern.  A normalized gait pattern means being able to walk or stand symmetrically. Gait training exercises will teach you to properly shift your weight and improve your walking speed as well.
• Improves posture and balance.  Gait training exercises improve the strength of your lower limbs. This allows you to carry your weight and shift it on both sides until you achieve balance. Regaining your balance also helps in improving your posture.
• Decreases risk of falls. Other than helping patients regain their balance and posture, gait training also encourages you to have confidence in your footing. Overall, this helps decrease your risk of falling or tripping.
• Builds muscle memory. Muscle memory is the process of familiarizing your brain with a certain motion by doing repetitive actions. This will help make your movements accurate and faster.
• Reduces the risk of chronic diseases. Inactivity only makes your injured body weaker. Thus, prolonging your recovery process. Gait training can provide you with the regular physical activity you need to reduce the risk of developing chronic diseases such as heart diseases and osteoporosis.
• Improves cognitive and emotional wellbeing. To learn how to walk or stand again means you need to get your eyes, ears, and musculoskeletal system involved. This helps improve your mental focus and sharpness. Also, being able to move about confidently and independently allows you to interact with your surroundings better which contributes to having healthier emotional wellbeing.

Gait training involves hard work on your part. When you have just suffered from an injury or a disease that impairs your ability to walk, it can be very difficult to carry out even basic exercises. However, remember that there’s a professional team looking after you.

Your doctor won’t encourage you to start training until they determine that you’re healthy enough to do so. Once you start, a therapist will be with you at all times. Although the exercises will gradually increase in difficulty, the therapist will make sure you’re only doing the actions you can handle.

Common Exercises For Gait Training:

• Walking on a treadmill
• Stepping over objects
• Sitting down and standing up
• Lifting your legs
• Raising your heels and toes from a sitting position
• Raising your knees to your chest from a lying position
• Standing on one leg