Howard Knudsen owsn a Provo Physical Therapy clinic that provides non-traditional PT for chronic pain. He has been practicing for about 13 years.
Howard Knudsen has been providing provo physical therapy in a professional setting since 1998, and integrates several modalities for a unique treatment that is individualized to each client's needs. He provides therapeutic treatments by appointment in his Provo, Utah office: 801-310-0851.
What New? Our New Alter G Anti-Gravity Treadmill
Success Story: Our New Alter G Anti-Gravity Treadmill
Photograph taken while on vacation with my wife in San Francisco at Muirwoods State Park. These redwoods are likely over 300 feet tall (some reach heights of 378 feet tall).
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations:
Adults need at least:
A) 2 hours and 30 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity (i.e., brisk walking) every week and
B) Weight training muscle-strengthening activities on 2 or more days a week that work all major muscle groups (legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest, shoulders, and arms).
More than 40 studies in the scientific literature document that cardiac risk can be reduced by 30 - 50% by regular, moderate exercise for 20 - 30 minutes at least five days a week.
Research indicates that walking 15 minutes a day three times a week may help decrease osteoarthritis pain by up to 40 percent.
A massive study (of over 5000 male subject spanning 30 years) shows that lung capacity determines longevity.
What is it?
The AlterG Anti-Gravity Treadmill was developed from NASA technology. It allows you to train or rehabilitate almost weightlessly, like you were walking on the moon.
If you experience pain in the lower back and/or legs while walking in Earth's gravity, then walking on the Moon's surface would likely be pain-free. The Moon's lower gravity would create a lower impact on your joints and less strain on your muscles and fascia.
Imagine taking a trip to the moon for your own moon walk. Do you remember the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969? I was only a fetus at the time. Watch the video below.
What is an AlterG and what does it do?
An AlterG is a rehabilitation treadmill that is encased in a pressurized tent. The tent is made of the same material as a rubber river raft with see-through plastic windows.
An air-compressor inflates the tent to create a positive-pressure lifting force on the lower body.
A force plate (that works like a weight scales) is located beneath the treadmill. It measures your body weight so the computer can determine how much positive-pressure is required to create a lifting force to lower your body weight while walking or running on the treadmill.
Lower-body positive-pressure treadmill.
Why is an AlterG a perfect rehabilitation device?
The scientific explanation is that the AlterG lowers a patient's Ground Reaction Force (GRF). What the heck is GRF?
The "lifting force" -- created by the pressurized tent -- lowers the GRF... which lowers the strain and compression that gravity places on your joints, fascia, and muscles.
In physics, and in particular in biomechanics, the GRF is the force exerted by the ground (or Earth) on a body in contact with it.
This follows Newton's Third Law of Motion, which states:
In other words, if object A (your body) exerts a force on object B (the earth), then the earth (object B) also exerts an equal and opposite force (the GRF) on your body (object A).
What does this mean?
It means that when your foot strikes the ground... the Earth "kicks" you back. And the impact of that "kick" travels up your leg to your spine.
Some of us can tolerate "the Earth's kick" while others cannot. If you have strained muscles or fascia, or if you have osteoarthritis and inflammation in your joints then running or even walking may be painful.
How much the Earth pushes back depends on how fast we are walking or running and how much we weigh.
When walking or running, our muscles generate the forces that push against the ground and the GRF propels us forward. Greater speed (velocity) requires greater push-off force, which creates greater GRF (which means the earth hits you back harder).
The AlterG treadmill allow you to:
1) burn calories,
2) work your lungs and heart, and
3) get your blood flowing to all of your body's cells.
Thereby you can promote health and wellness while manipulating the GRF (the Earth's kick that causes body pain) to extremely low levels.
Guess what? Now you can tolerate exercise again!
Who can AlterG help?
Pain, Orthopedic and Sports Medicine
Rehabilitation Patients
We can select from 20% of body weight to 100% in 1% increments, so patients can specify exactly where exercise becomes pain-free and progress can be easily tracked and charted.
People who are Dieting
Being over-weight can cause repetitive strain on ankle, knee, and hip joints, the sacroiliac joints, and the lumbar facet joints and discs. The AlterG treadmill is perfect for those that need to burn calories to lose weight but are finding it hard to exercise.
Senior Rehabilitation Strengthening and Conditioning (or those who are sedentary)
Exercise at fractional body weights to overcome mobility challenges in older patients
Promotes cardiovascular and musculoskeletal health in a safe environment
Strengthening and improved coordination of muscles thereby protecting surrounding joints
Builds confidence in senior patients for improved functional capacity
May lower the risk of falling
Watch this short video about the Alter G.:
The results of a study in the Journal of Orthopedic and Sports Physical Therapy suggest that walking on a anti-gravity treadmill (combined with other physical therapy) for people with low back and/or leg pain holds promise for pain relief and functional improvement.
Here is one example of success with a current patient. I evaluated an 80+ year old patient a few days before I received my Alter G anti-gravity treadmill. I noted that she had a lung capacity problem so I tested her walking capacity on our treadmill.
She could only walk for 45 seconds before her pain was bad enough that she asked to stop and sit down. She also reported that pain normally restricted her walking to short distances.
It is likely that her inability to perform aerobic exercise because of back pain had led to diminished lung capacity (I measured it at 50% of normal with a Forced Vital Capacity test).
On her third visit (two days after our new Alter G arrived) I had her try unloaded walking. I set the body weight unloading to 60% (this is like losing 46 lbs from her normal weight of 115 lbs), and she was able to walk for 0.25 mile without back pain.
Why is this important?
To heal from chronic pain you must be in a healthy state. To be in a healthy state, your blood chemistry (which is the environment of the cells) must be healthy.
Proper breathing cleanses the blood as oxygen enters in and carbon dioxide (a waste-product of cell metabolism) is exhaled from the lungs.
Diminished lung capacity lowers the oxygen level in your blood (this is called anoxia) which leads to increase pain sensitivity and lactic acid build-up (muscle soreness).
Our goal is to increase this patient's lung capacity to 100% of normal and improve her ability walk longer distance without lower back pain.
Please understand the following rule of health and natural self-healing:
In regards to blood chemistry and working towards wellness, I have uncovered an activity that works for both the brain and the lungs. It is part of my "perfect strategy" that I use everyday called breathwalking.
What I practice may be described as "synchronized-moving-and-breathing" while maintaining inner-body-awareness. See more details in the following section.
In 2005 I decided to "get back in shape" by jogging on a treadmill. At first I could only jog for about 5 minutes before feeling a strong desire to quit (because of fatigue). I didn't improve much over the next couple weeks (I was only up to 7 minutes).
Then something remarkable happened! I decided to check my oxygen saturation with a pulse oximeter while jogging.
I noticed my oxygen level was dropping below 88% at the time that I had a strong urge to quit.
A thought came to me: "What if I consciously breathe more to keep the percentage higher?"
I attempted to consciously breathe to keep my oxygen-level above 96%. Soon I figured out the best breathing pattern for jogging.
By breathing more effectively I was able to jog longer distances. In fact, the duration jumped from 7 minutes to more than 35 minutes, almost from one day to the next. What's more... the only reason I stopped at 35 minutes was because I had an appointment to get to, not because of an urge to stop.
Three years later, my brother let me borrow an audio program he owned and I discovered another way to consciously breathe while walking.
Anthony Robins Version: Breathwalking
Top-selling author and success guru Anthony Robbins, calls it "breathwalking" on his Get The Edge audio program. He has already eliminated all the "spooky" features as he knew they would not be palatable to his audience.
I learned "breathwalking" from Tony while I was staying at a beach house in Mission Beach, San Diego. The best place to do these synchronized moving and breathing exercises is when you are surrounded by the wonders of nature; what more do you need for inspiration!
Listening to Tony's instructions, I walked along the beach, trying not to worry that someone would see me and think I was crazy. It might look strange at first glance as you "sniff" in and "puff" out segmentally in 4-parts each ("sniff... sniff... sniff... sniff" (on the inhale) then, "puff... puff... puff.. puff" (on the exhale) as you synchronize the footsteps with each unit of breath.
He also taught me to recite "incantations" (as an alternative to the "puffs" during exhalation), like:
I have been doing a modified version of the Anthony Robins' "breathwalking" exercises for two and a half years almost every day and I have to say I am getting profound results. It is the foundation of my exercise program and I wouldn't want to start a work day without it.
As a previous "strongman" on a Junior College football team that is saying a lot. When I was at Snow College I bench pressed 235-pounds for 27 repetitions. I refer to this only to suggest that walking -- as an exercise -- was not something I would do if I didn't see profound results.
When I got home from my week-long vacation in San Diego, I googled breathwalking and found a website of the yogis who developed the program.
One week later, I was at a workshop in Salt Lake City at the University of Utah, along with seven other attendees (one was a professor of psychology and another was a physical therapist) to become a certified Breathwalk ® instructor.
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