In this era of wellness, you might engage with multiple health professionals—from your primary care physician and dermatologist to your therapist and dietitian—to take care of all aspects of your body. That may soon include a physical therapist.

“I know a number of clinics that are trying to implement an annual visit to a physical therapist—similar to how you would see your primary physician for a yearly physical,” says , a professor of physical therapy at California State University, Northridge.

What Is Preventive Physical Therapy?

Typically, you go to physical therapy because you’re trying to recover from an injury. But at a preventive physical therapy check-up, you can expect to take similar tests of strength, flexibility, balance, and gait. The results of these assessments determine where you could be prone to injury when walking, running, playing sports, or even just performing daily chores, Flores says.

In the same way that tests at your annual physical might indicate high blood pressure or an irregular heart rate, the results of these evaluations can do the same. “For instance, , cognitive decline, fall risk, and even mortality,” Flores says. Once you identify these problem areas, your physical therapist can develop an action plan.

However, that doesn’t mean your calendar is about to be full of ongoing sessions. According to , a physical therapist for , preventive physical therapy isn’t meant to be perpetual.

“We don’t want clients to be coming to physical therapy forever, especially if they don’t have an injury,” MacMillen Sitagata says. “We do, however, want to have them coming in for checkups—or to get the groundwork that they need to properly do their exercises and go on from there.”

How Much Does Preventive Physical Therapy Cost?

Unfortunately, there’s no industry standard for how much you can expect to pay for preventive physical therapy. A single appointment could run you between $150 and $350, MacMillen Sitagata says. However, your insurance may cover these sessions—especially if you have a referral from your primary care physician.

If that sounds steep, consider the costs of injury, particularly if you’re a competitive athlete. “Even though insurance does not cover it all the time, preventive physical therapy could save you so much money,” MacMillen Sitagata says. “Even if you did 12 sessions and paid more than $1,000, that’s still going to be less than if you had one surgery for a preventable injury.”

Do I Still Need Preventive Physical Therapy If I’m Cross-Training?

Sure, you may be dedicated to your cross-training regimen—but that won’t protect you from injury in the same way preventive physical therapy might.

“When I’m doing a physical therapy assessment, I’m not only looking at one part of the body,” says Angelica Alberto, a physical therapist. “I’m looking at how the rest of the body may potentially be influencing whatever ache or pain the patient is coming in with.” For instance, Alberto adds, if a client is experiencing knee pain, she’ll conduct tests to see what the source of the discomfort is.

Those are the types of questions that cross-training can’t answer. While this smart workout methodology can help you avoid overstressing the body with the same repetitive movements, it doesn’t address specific injury-prone areas, Flores says.

For the best odds of decreasing your risk of injury, combine your yoga and strength training efforts with some preventive physical therapy. Trust us: your body will thank you in the long run.

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Being human is all about balance. We strive to find an ever-elusive equilibrium between work and life. We go to yoga classes in hopes of improving our physical steadiness. We eat an assortment of fruits and vegetables, but we also munch on chips and dip. And, from a physiological standpoint, our blood cells need balance, too.

As athletes—especially ones who spend time outdoors during a heat wave—the ethos we usually hear is “hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.” However, a 2020 research article from Stanford University School of Medicine offers a different perspective. In the piece, the study’s lead author notes that

How Much Water is Too Much?

One of the most important things to maintain balance in our blood cells is the sodium-to-water ratio, says , associate professor of exercise and sport science at . When you’re dehydrated, you contain less water, causing your blood cells to shrink. However, when you drink some H2O, your cells recover quickly.

When you consume a lot of water (more than three liters in an hour), your sodium levels dip to abnormally low levels, taking you into dangerous territory. If the water count in your body is much higher than your sodium levels, you can develop —a dangerous result of overhydration. “If you drink too much water, all of your cells start to swell,” Hew-Butler says. “That becomes a problem in your brain, because your brain can only swell five to eight percent [beyond its normal size] before it runs out of space in the skull.”

It’s not something to be taken lightly. In some cases, hyponatremia , Hew-Butler says. “The amount of water that leads to hyponatremia is different for everyone,” she adds. “It depends on the size of the person, the ambient temperature, and exercise intensity and duration.” However, if you need to quantify it, typically , potentially prompting a seizure, coma, or even death, Hew-Butler says.

Why Is Overhydration More Dangerous Than Dehydration?

Overhydration is a particularly large concern during the summer months. “The first thing that everybody tells you—and it’s not always wrong—is to drink lots of water,” Hew-Butler says. “But, when it’s hot out, .”

That’s because your blood cells actually retain water as a result of the heat, so you’re not quite as dehydrated as you may think.

This isn’t necessarily new information, Hew-Butler says. “The results of a support that hyponatremia is [generally] more common than heatstroke.” She adds that it’s the most common cause of serious illness in the Grand Canyon—more than heat exhaustion, grand mal seizures, nausea, and dizziness.

How to Hydrate Properly

What should you do to achieve that balance of hydration? Drink to thirst, recommends , a sports physiologist and the founder of sports nutrition brand . (So yes, that means skipping out on your emotional support water bottle.) However, even when you’re feeling parched, make sure to monitor your H2O intake.

“During exercise, the thirst mechanism will prioritize [sodium] balance over water balance,” Lim says. “As we lose sodium in our sweat, we will naturally drink less water to maintain sodium balance. Since there’s not as much sodium in the body, we don’t drink everything we lose, so we can keep the ratio of water to sodium the same.” Essentially, your body makes you thirsty when that sodium-to-water ratio is skewing high on sodium. And that’s when you should drink water.

You know that old saying, “Listen to your body?” That’s sage advice when it comes to hydration, especially when it’s hot out. “Drinking to thirst is important even though it can result in dehydration,” says Lim. “That dehydration is important to keep the sodium balance correct.”

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