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The Alimond Show
Dr. McKenna Lupold - Muscles, Movement, and Myths: What Your Physical Therapist Wants You to Know
Ever wondered what physical therapy actually treats beyond post-surgical recovery and sports injuries? Dr. McKenna Lupold shatters common misconceptions and opens our eyes to the vast world of physical therapy in this enlightening conversation.
As both a Doctor of Physical Therapy and a certified pelvic floor specialist at Phoenix Physical Therapy in Herndon, McKenna explains how physical therapists are truly "movement specialists" who can address everything from neck pain caused by desk work to the complex muscular changes that occur during pregnancy and postpartum. She takes us on a journey through the comprehensive nature of her work, revealing how physical therapists assess movement patterns, build personalized treatment plans, and help patients achieve their specific functional goals without medication or surgery.
Perhaps most eye-opening is McKenna's discussion of pelvic floor therapy. These muscles at the bottom of the pelvis control bowel and bladder function, sexual pleasure, and literally hold up your organs—yet most people know very little about them. McKenna breaks down the barriers surrounding this topic, explaining how pelvic floor issues affect both men and women, and emphatically states that conditions like urinary incontinence are treatable, not something anyone should simply accept as normal.
What truly sets McKenna's approach apart is her focus on the whole person. "If I can figure out what drives you, then I can help you do what you want to do," she explains, highlighting how understanding a patient's unique goals guides her treatment strategy. Whether treating a teenager with a sports injury or a 96-year-old wanting to maintain independence, McKenna's patient-centered philosophy shines through.
Ready to transform how you think about physical therapy? Visit Phoenix Physical Therapy's website or give their Herndon location a call to begin your journey toward pain-free movement and improved quality of life.
My name is McKenna Leupold. I'm a doctor of physical therapy. I work at Phoenix Physical Therapy in Herndon. I also treat pelvic floor conditions, so I'm a pelvic floor PT and I'm a certified orthopedic manual therapist. I'm certified in dry needling and to do pelvic health physical therapy. I guess helping people is what drives me, which is probably what most physical therapists would say, but most of us do it just because we care and we want to help people feel better and, you know, get them better without using medications or surgery.
Speaker 2:Awesome, awesome. And so you mentioned that you got your doctorate in it and that's like kind of your formal education to it and you got into it through high school. But kind of coming into that, what besides, like you know the, you know the didactic education and stuff, what did you just learn to do? All those certifications that you did Was that kind of all through one schooling or how?
Speaker 1:did that come together? Yeah, so we learned when you come out of PT school you're kind of like trained to do a little bit of everything, like you're kind of like a master of none. And then when you come out of school you get your first job and you start to pursue like what kind of things you're most interested in. So we take they're called continuing education classes or like weekend courses for whatever you want, and there's everything out there like anything from like neurologic rehab to pediatric courses to, you know, rehabbing the shoulder. So to get a certification, you basically take the coursework and pass an exam or a competency and then you can get certified in something.
Speaker 2:So the, the certifications or the rehab that you focus on. So you said that you could say you're training a master of number and you kind of got this focus.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What drove you to get to these focuses and can you say the name of the focuses again? Yeah, I'm trying to pick it up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so I'm focused in like orthopedics and then pelvic health physical therapy. So it's kind of just the when we're in school we have to do clinical rotations, so whatever you're kind of learning in those clinical rotations I feel like kind of shapes what you're interested in. So I kind of knew I always played sports, that I wanted to do orthopedics. And then my last clinical rotation I was with an amazing therapist and she was treating patients with pelvic health conditions and that was my exposure and I thought it was really awesome and so I took some classes to kind of learn more. It's really cool. Basically, pelvic health physical therapy is anything kind of affecting the pelvic floor muscles, which are a group of muscles at the bottom of the pelvis and so they control bowel and bladder control, sexual appreciation, pleasure function. They're part of your core and then they literally hold up your organs. So anyone experiencing issues with that, you're're looking for pelvic floor physical therapy basically.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, cool. So that's good for your general overall health.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so like I guess the clients who kind of come to Phoenix like your practice and how do they like when they come to you, like what are the kind of general things that they're looking to kind of improve with your rehabs?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so because we do orthopedics and pelvic health, like if they're coming for it could be anything orthopedic. So it could be something post-operative, where they had surgery, a sports injury, which I think is what most people think when they think physical therapy. But it could also just be like my shoulder hurts, I sit at my desk too long, my neck hurts. You know, I want to prevent injuries, I want to get back to running. I've had some time off and then, from a pelvic health standpoint, it's a lot of women in pregnancy, postpartum, later in life. I treat males and females so, like anyone with pelvic pain, urinary incontinence, constipation, like things you would not think there's treatment for. But that's what pelvic health physical therapists treat.
Speaker 2:And are they coming to you like out of like, their own knowledge, or are they like getting referred?
Speaker 1:Sometimes, yeah Sometimes, there are people that are like I heard about this or like I had a friend and it really helped them. I think I could use help. And other times they're coming their doctor's sending them so like maybe they go to the doctor and they're like my lower back really hurts and the doctor's like, okay, go see a physical therapist.
Speaker 2:Okay, cool, cool. So what are, like you said, people kind of come in and they don't really know, but what are, like some misconceptions that people have going into physical PT stuff, like they don't really believe in it sometimes, or I guess?
Speaker 1:what have you experienced? Yeah, all across the board. I do think I kind of mentioned that. Like a lot of people think it's just like after surgery or a specific sports injury, which is just a really small part of what physical therapists do. We can treat anything musculoskeletal, so like from a toe to head, even headaches we can treat, and so I think that's something people don't think a lot about when they're thinking of physical therapy. And then also, like you know, whatever their family or friends have experienced, that's going to shape their beliefs about it, like think, oh, I've had this pain for a long time, I don't think it's going to get better, and then we can help them with that. Like there's always something we can improve upon. Maybe can't take the pain away, but maybe we can get them functioning better, like able to get on off the floor or preventing a fall things like that.
Speaker 2:So and you're working directly with these clients talking every day.
Speaker 1:So how do you get them over that hill and build that trust? Yeah, it takes time, right? So we call it like building the therapeutic alliance and like it's between us and the patient and trying to get them to trust us and show them what we can do. And sometimes it takes time, like a lot of time working, and then you start to see like, oh, look, you can do it a little bit more, you can do it, kind of proving to them. And then other times it's really quick. They're like okay, yep, I want to do it yep, I want to do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so after you build that therapeutic trust that reluctance goes away and they're like I can't wait to come back to see McKenna again. Yeah, it's a good feeling too.
Speaker 1:It's a really rewarding job to have to see people be able to do things they want to do Amazing.
Speaker 2:And I know your pelvic floor rehab stuff that happens a lot in pregnancy and postpartum. Is that a focus of you target as well, or something? Because I know someone my wife was pregnant. That's what we needed to work on, like pelvic floor therapy. Is there something that's something you can expand on? Yeah, postpartum stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so so much changes during pregnancy, like I mean, your body literally grows a baby in 40 weeks or less. So all those changes that happen. There's so many musculoskeletal things that happen too. Your posture changes, your alignment changes, you know, your belly stretches, your back changes, everything, your feet, everything from, like the hormones in your body affect your ligaments, how your connective tissue is functioning, how your muscles are functioning. So there's so much that happens. So postpartum, you know you have the baby, which is traumatic, like that's trauma. And then all of a sudden you're like, okay, now I have to lift up this baby and carry them around and, you know, wash all these bottles and do so much laundry, all those crazy like instant life demands that change, like then it causes problems because it's like I don't. I didn't have to lift up a five to 10 pound baby 20, 30 times a day. You know, a week ago, Right.
Speaker 1:And your body's trying to recover.
Speaker 2:And with these demands, like I know, like you brought up the demand stuff, so are these kind of like processes and guys like you kind of give them to them so they can do it at home, or they got to come to you or so it depends, like it's a little bit different for everyone, which is why physical therapy is so cool it's individualized to you.
Speaker 1:So it depends on the person you know. Some people will come like if they're having a lot of difficulty, a lot of pain, they might come two or even three times a week for like hands-on, like one-on-one therapy. And other people are just like hey, like I feel like I'm a little weaker, like my core is weak. I feel like I have some abdominal separation or like diastasis recti postpartum. Can you show me some safe exercises to do? And then they do it. But everybody coming into my clinic gets homework.
Speaker 1:No matter what you're coming for the first day, you're going to get some homework, some exercise homework, because that's what helps get things better more quickly. And we also want to teach people how to take care of their condition themselves right, so it's not just us doing it Like you have to take ownership and responsibility in healing yourself, so that's a hard part as a patient Cause I'm like you have to do some stuff at home.
Speaker 2:How do you check if they're doing the homework?
Speaker 1:Our company actually does have kind of like a tracking system where they get like exercises on an app and we can kind of see if they're doing it. But I don't check it. I don't check it, you're going to know, because if you come in and I'm like, how do exercises?
Speaker 2:go.
Speaker 1:And you, yeah, I did them. And I'm like, okay, well, let's start with that, show me what you did. And you're like I have no idea what I did. So you provide the tools you know because usually it's helping them right, like we try to give them individualized things, specific things to help. So if you come in, you're like I feel a little better. I'm like, okay, you probably did your exercises.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you're providing the tools of like being a patient right, absolutely.
Speaker 1:You got to show up, you got to do it.
Speaker 2:I tore a ligament in my ankle. I was the worst patient but I had to do it. So we talked about some pelvic floor therapy stuff. Is that a misconception? That that's like only for women.
Speaker 1:Because, like as a male, I've never known like.
Speaker 2:Is this something that's never crossed my mind. I never had to do it, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, I Women, like we're a little more, we talk about it more, right, we have a lot of women choose to have kids or, like you know, you go to the gynecologist. You're getting kind of your pelvic floor checked inadvertently regularly for preventative care, where I feel like men aren't necessarily doing that unless a problem arises, right. So you know, maybe you're having difficulty with urination or pain somewhere down there and then you end up at the urologist eventually and the urologist does all these tests and they're like I can't find anything wrong with you. Like go to a physical therapist. Interesting. So the pelvic floor muscles like control your ability to go to the bathroom or not go to the bathroom.
Speaker 1:So literally anyone having trouble like toileting, like peeing or pooping and it's everything else is rolled out and they're like this could be muscular. You're going to go to a physical therapist. So guys have issues with that too, right? Guys get constipation. Guys can have pelvic pain. The other thing we'll see a lot in male populations is individuals that have had prostate cancer or prostate surgeries. When the prostate's removed or they're doing treatment there, it can affect how the muscles work. So sometimes we'll see urinary issues, really often like post prostatectomy when the prostate's removed. So that's something we'll see a lot too. But I feel like guys don't talk about as much, but we love to have you.
Speaker 2:We had no idea.
Speaker 1:I mean groin pain, testicular pain, all that stuff like is not normal and probably treatable and should be getting treatment for if you're experiencing that I'm glad we're learning about this sooner than later, for sure, and same for women, like pelvic pain in general, pain with intercourse.
Speaker 1:those things are not normal. It tells us something's not functioning right. So if you're feeling that or experiencing that like it's good to talk to your doctor about it and eventually get to pelvic floor PT. We can kind of take a look and see if it's a muscular problem and see if we could help.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you're helping all these people. You know like it's from every different kind of way make them feel better. What, what do you? How do you feel like when they come back to you and, just like you know, starting to feel like myself again?
Speaker 1:It's really rewarding. I will say it doesn't happen with every patient, yeah, so there's definitely some people like this doesn't work.
Speaker 1:Well, like chronic conditions, like maybe the goal is not that they're pain free, like I said, but really with physical therapy we're looking to see like maybe we can get you feeling better. But really, how can we get you functioning better? Right, so maybe you have that chronic ankle injury, like your ankle's probably not going to be perfect. You tore a ligament, right, so it's torn, but maybe we can get you back to like walking, standing, jogging, exercising, with less pain and you can do more and you're a lot more comfortable doing it.
Speaker 2:So it feels good though.
Speaker 1:It's hard when you can't help someone, though Like and that happens too I mean I think, regardless, we're going to do everything we can and help guide a patient, like maybe physical therapy is not the answer Right, and we'll be the first to tell you like, hey, this doesn't look like a physical therapy thing, but we'll try to help patients get referred to the right provider, help coordinate care for them so that they can get help. I tell patients I don't care if it's not me that gets you better, I just want you to get better and feel better.
Speaker 1:It can be challenging, though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean amongst all the challenges it's going to happen across your career. So I guess, what is it that kind of keeps you?
Speaker 1:kind of keeps you going though, like you know, if you're doing this all the time, um, like what is like the typical day, that kind of keeps you coming back yeah, I think the advent of always being able to learn more, like the human body is so incredibly complex, which is kind of why I wanted to do this um to learn more about the human body. That's why I wanted to be a pt, thought it was really fascinating, and there's always more. There's always someone that can mentor you. There's always a therapist that knows different things or has a specialty in a different area Always something different you can do in physical therapy. So I think that is just one of the coolest things about our profession is that you can treat babies to people in their 90s, 100 years old. Like there's always something different you can learn or do, and so that really keeps me coming back to PT.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. The research is always changing too.
Speaker 1:It is yeah, and you know it's hard to study the human body because it's really hard to control for things. Yeah, Like they're people Like we're doing studies on people.
Speaker 2:Do you work with? A wide range range from like children to adults and other people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like I've. Well, I actually have treated a few infants, but that's not common. Usually they would go to like a pediatric specialty place, but we'll see like adolescent kids, teenagers, young adults all the way. My oldest patient was 96. Wow, so we really see a full range, and then you can imagine all the different things that come along with the aging process. So the variety is what makes it really fun too, so you've seen it all.
Speaker 2:You mentioned something.
Speaker 1:Probably haven't seen it all. There's always going to be something new. Yeah, that's what makes it cool, though you haven't seen it all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all. Yeah, I haven't seen it all and then probably never will see it. Yeah, but you you've thrown out a lot of big words at me and stuff like that, and so so how do you explain that to?
Speaker 1:like your family and friends. Like what do they ask you? Like what do you do? Like how do you? Yeah, I usually say so.
Speaker 1:Let's say you were coming into me and you're like I've never had physical therapy before, I don't know what it is. My doctor told me to come and I'm scared, which happens. I'd say, like what we focus on is we look at your musculoskeletal system, so the muscles, the bones, the joints, ligaments, like any connective tissue. That's kind of what we're focused on and we like to see how you're moving. So we're going to look at how you move, can you move, how strong are you and what kind of things you're having difficulty doing. We're kind of like movement specialists as well. So sometimes people will say like I'm just not walking well, right, okay, so let's watch you walk. So we start with an evaluation and then we figure out what's going on right. So like, what tissue is the problem and how can we help make it better? So I kind of say, like I'm a movement specialist, I watch you move and then we're going to find different exercises or movements to help get you better or back to doing that movement better.
Speaker 2:Does that change like your daily life, just watching how people move, just in general? Oh my God, yeah.
Speaker 1:Most physical therapists will tell you like if you sit in an airport or something, we're just watching people skate. Like we can't stop. But it's like that for I'm sure, so many different things. Right, you have your little niche and then you're like always aware of it.
Speaker 2:It's like an evolved people watching? No, it does. That's awesome. So I guess, like, what is it then that you know McKenna and Phoenix Physical Therapy, that you guys kind of like differentiate yourself from other PT plays, like what makes you guys sort of unique? Or I guess, what is it? What's your focus?
Speaker 1:Yeah, phoenix Physical Therapy is actually a big company. Like we have a lot of clinics, um, especially throughout Pennsylvania, maryland, virginia, we have a few. I think what Phoenix does really, really well is that we really offer individualized care. We try to spend one-on-one time with every patient, which is very unique to us and sometimes hard to do Um, I can talk about why that's hard in a minute. But we really try to give very individualized, unique care to each patient, because that's what you're coming for. Right, you can look up YouTube videos of exercise to do and probably get kind of better. But the point of coming to physical therapy is that we can look at you specifically and make it individualized and tailored to you and then we can adjust and modify right. So when things are going great we can make it harder, when things aren't going great we can kind of back off. So that like ebb and flow is really. I think we do that so well at Phoenix Physical Therapy. We're very patient-centered and individualized.
Speaker 2:And how about yourself then? What do you like, what do you kind of like? Try to know that you're working with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the most important part when someone comes in is that first, like initial, like interview or talking we call it taking the subjective, so like the patient telling us or the client telling us, like what they're experiencing, what's going on and what their goals are. Because if you can figure out what the patient's goals are and really kind of dive into that, then we know, like maybe you're not so worried about your ankle hurting, maybe you're more worried about, like picking up your child and being able to take a walk with them in the evening, right. So if I can figure that out, then I know what drives you and then I can help you do what you want to do. Basically, nice.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you're more less worried about the injury than more about the person.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I think that's. I mean half, maybe more than half of what we do is like trying to take care of the person and then the other stuff kind of falls into place. I mean you have to be good at both, but if you're not good taking care of the person, they're never going to get better yeah, amazing.
Speaker 2:Okay, um, before like you head out of here, what would you like? What's like the one like thing you want, like debunk or or like a myth that you want to like leave our listeners with in terms of, like, physical therapy, the pelvic health or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, that's a good one, I will say. I think pelvic health wise, this is a great one. Like urinary incontinence or leakage is treatable.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:So a lot of people think that's something they have to live with. They maybe have kids, maybe haven't. You could be young, male, female, any gender, any person. It is probably treatable and not something that you should live with. There are a few cases, like if there's specific neurologic conditions or something, where it might not be as treatable. But for most people, if you're experiencing that, talk to your doctor, ask to come to physical therapy, pelvic floor physical therapy because we can treat it and it can make your life so much better not having to deal with that.
Speaker 2:Amazing, yeah, but if they did like a lot of like uh, wanted to take care of themselves in that way, like what are like symptoms, like they, look out for.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like yeah, so like if you really common like urgency, like oh my god, I really have to pee. I'm peeing all the time, I'm leaking, like I can't hold my bladder when you cough, sneeze, sneeze, jump when you run or do exercises, or like you can't make it to the bathroom quick enough and you're like leaking. That's something that you should look out for and if you're experiencing that, talk to your doctor, ask Maybe physical therapy can help. We treat it all the time and it's really life-changing. We don't have to deal with that anymore.
Speaker 2:Okay, so cool. Yeah, I mean so you're focused on the pelvic stuff right now you're always looking for the bathroom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're looking for a pelvic floor.
Speaker 2:Pt does that ever cross your mind now, just kind of casual conversation, like if someone ever say that stuff I mean not that it would, but it does happen sometimes. Right, you should check that out.
Speaker 1:Like maybe we'll be treating someone like for something else and they're like we notice, like they're going to the bathroom a lot or they kind of mention it and you're like you know we can treat that. And they're like really, I'm like absolutely Like we can treat that.
Speaker 2:It's muscles. It's kind of embarrassing Like you could treat that. What do you mean? You could treat that Like? How do you?
Speaker 1:How do we do it? How do?
Speaker 2:you approach that Just like, oh like. What do you?
Speaker 1:mean you could treat that up right. So we have a private treatment room. It's quiet, it's secluded, Like it's just one-on-one. We're talking to the patient, I see, and then I mean it is a barrier to come right. You have to be kind of comfortable enough to talk about it, which not everyone is. It's a hard step to make but, like, when you're ready we can talk about it and then we'll assess, like all the muscles you know, we'll assess the pelvic floor muscles, the hips, the back, the core, and then go from there and find a treatment plan to get them better. Amazing.
Speaker 2:All right, mckenna. Well, we appreciate your time. Just one last thing. It's just how can people connect with you and at Phoenix Physical Therapy if they're ready to start their own healing journey?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have a website. Our website's awesome and we have clinics across the area. So if you just search Phoenix Physical Therapy, Google us, put it in the chat GPT, I'm in Herndon and all of our info is on there our hours, phone number, emails on there. That's probably the best way you can give our clinic a call. If you want Call it old school, I mean, yeah.
Speaker 2:Awesome, all right, thanks, mckenna. Thank you so much for having us.
Speaker 1:We're so happy to have you on our podcast.