Dentistry Gym is back! This month Khalil Hussein explains why dentists should treat themselves as athletes and ways to prepare yourself for a day of clinical work.
Have you ever stopped to consider yourself as an athlete? Well if you haven’t then you should reconsider the thought.
I say this because athletes are required to prepare themselves for their sport. Olympic champions are an example of the best of the best. They spend years and hours training to make it to the top. That preparation is key to helping them perform amazing things.
Without preparation, they will never build the strength, speed, or endurance required to withstand the stress of their chosen sport.
If you tried to run a marathon without preparation you would likely come out in a bad way (not always, but it’s much more likely to happen).
So, knowing all of this, why then does no one think that they need to prepare themselves for dentistry? A job that requires many hours, months, and years of looking down and into people’s mouths. A job that requires you to contort your body to try and perform surgical procedures in an area not much bigger than a small bowl.
This type of work requires strength, it requires endurance and it requires skill.
Change your mindset
When you’re younger you have these things, but as we all age we lose them.
So here in lies the athletic preparation required to maintain yourself at the top of your game.
Just like that Olympic athlete preparing for four years to compete, a dentist goes through university to eventually come out into the world.
The only difference is that every day you are competing and performing. You are performing against patients who can’t recline, patients who struggle to open their mouths, and patients who have the bone density of concrete blocks. You are performing root canals for hours on end and you are performing under pressure and time stress.
Without adequate preparation, you are more than likely going to wear down. For a lot of you reading this you will have begun to start experiencing pain and injury. These are side effects of under preparation and lack of care.
So I implore you to change your mindset and think of yourself as an athlete.
Dental preparation
Start to prepare your bodies for the rigours of war against cavities. Start to strengthen your body piece by piece so that you are better prepared for your job.
Doing this will mean that when the bell rings, you will come out on top and be victorious – without injury.
In today’s episode, we go through neck strengthening, an often under-appreciated part of being a dentist.
Start slow and progressively overload and work yourself. Push yourself to be better than last week.
I promise you, changing your mindset towards this will benefit your life tremendously in more ways than you can imagine.
This class is designed for viewers to carry it out with minimal equipment at home. We don’t use weights so these exercises are quite safe for most people.
However, before conducting any exercises please consult your GP or allied health therapist for guidance and advice about your own circumstances and whether these exercises are the right thing for you.
Always seek medical advice before starting any exercise program.
Follow Khalil Hussein on his Instagram: @khalilchiro, or via his website: www.khalilhussein.net.