What’s Wrong With This?
When dealing with back pain a common relief strategy people use is to stretch for the back. In this weeks blog post we are going to discuss why stretching your lower back may not be an effective long term way of dealing with your pain. For a long time it was common for people to prescribe certain stretches for example pulling your knees to your chest while lying on your back as an exercise for people suffering with lower back pain. Short term the exercise makes sense. If people had trouble standing for long periods of time or if they were in pain lying on their back then they would feel better in a flexed position. Many who complained of feeling stiff and painful in their low back had instant relief of their symptoms after performing a few of these stretches. However, this relief is only temporary for most people. When you stretch your low back, you are stimulating the stretch receptors deep inside the muscles that give the perception of pain relief and the feeling of less stiffness. But muscle pain and stiffness you may feel in your back is caused because of a chemical reaction called inflammation. Inflammation […]
Are You Squatting Right?
Squatting is one of the most common exercises to perform in the gym but often is done incorrectly. A good place to start is if we look at it as a movement rather than an exercise. If we can fix the problems in a bodyweight squat you can create a greater capability to carry the load with the barbell. The importance of the squat: Squatting is a functional movement. This is because if you look at most sports for example a tennis player waiting for the serve or a goalkeeper at a penalty. The starting stance of the squatting movement is a universal position that carries over into many other movement patterns. Toe angle: Different people have different mobility limitations and anatomical differences will impact the width of your stance. The goal is to place your feet in a position that will allow for a full depth squat while still feeling comfortable. Although overall placing your feet at shoulder width apart is a good starting position for most people. When it comes to the feet for a bodyweight squat it is best to have a near straight foot position with a very slight 5 degree outwards rotation for your feet […]
Back Pain? Ways To Manage At Work
It is likely that you or someone you know has had low back pain in the past. It is a common problem but often it can be tackled by simply changing how you are moving or changing a couple of key habits in the day. This blog will cover ways to help the office worker and people working lifting boxes and machinery. If you sit with bad posture during the day then it will put more stress on certain areas of your back. Some key movement tips: Don’t bend and round your back when getting out of bed When brushing your teeth, unloading the dishwasher or other simple movements you want to avoid too much spinal movement. To help try and hinge from the hips. You should feel like you’re gliding your bottom backwards in order to lean forwards. It’s fine to lean one hand on the sink for support. Try not to be hunched over when putting on shoes and socks, instead put a foot up on a chair to help bring your hips into play like in the point above. Lifting: Sometimes fixing your posture can help but often peoples jobs require lifting or moving in the day. […]
Ways to Manage Arthritis and Achy Joints
Osteoarthritis is a common condition that people develop and can cause issues preventing people from doing the activities they want especially at a good intensity. Often people jump to surgery or have a surgery planned for a few years down the line. But there are things you can do to help manage the condition and if you do have surgery for example your knee then you will be in a better position to recover from it. So below is a list of easy things to try to help manage your pain. Exercise is an easy option to improve symptoms and function in people with osteoarthritis. A great place to start is 5-10 minutes on a bike as this will strengthen your quadricep muscles which has been shown to greatly help with pre operation or post knee operation knee health. Also in a 20 minute cycle you will do around 1000 knee mobilisations! This means the knee will be loose and mobile to help you do the activities you want. You can also do repeated knee extensions and repeated knee flexions called knee CARs which you can see in the video below. As with the bike, sometimes warming up the knee […]
Cycling With An Achy Back?
It is common for cyclists to complain about having a sore or achy back. Commonly this can be easily avoided and is due to people rushing out on their bike or not getting the bike fitted to them correctly. Because bikes are not a one size fits all, you can get fitted for your bike cheaply and easily and it can make a big difference to back pain. But apart from poor bike fit what are some other reasons for people getting back pain cycling? The seat is too high so your knee has a less than 25% bend at the end of the stroke. This will force you to rock your pelvis from side to side to get enough power at bottom of your pedal stroke. The handlebars are too far forward causing you to overstretch which will increase tension in your lower back. Flexing the lower back and causing core abdominal muscles to be in a poor position and so won’t work effectively. This means you won’t be in a stable position when you’re cycling. Using BIG gears. You should aim for a cadence of around 90 RPM. If you are getting lower than this then it will […]
Are You Warming Up Right?
A common question we get in clinic is what to do before warming up and more importantly what not to do. Sometimes people can be doing a warm up that will last as long as their actual workout because it contains a number of different elements to it. These might be an aerobic phase, self-myofascial release, mobility drills, activation drills and movement patterning. Then by the time they workout you are tired and fatigued. But something that is always important and to always be thought of before warming up on your workout days is some days you will need certain exercises and some days others, depending if you wake up stiff or if you are feeling good. Any exercise that does not directly contribute to making your workout better is not worth doing. An overly extensive warm up can actually decrease your effectiveness to workout causing some central fatigue. Central fatigue is not to do with how you are feeling on a certain day, but rather the weakening of your central nervous system to send signals to your muscles. For example a 20 minute cycle before you start deadlifting is not the most effective way to prepare your body for […]
Best Supplements For Mental Health
Many common mental health issues can be exacerbated by nutritional deficiencies. We can perform better athletically with the right supplementation and we can help to improve our mental side with health supplements as well as with a healthy diet. Here are the best supplements to consider. Fish oils Fish oils help with various mental issues from depression to cognitive decline. It is becoming more common for people to be prescribed diets high in fish or fish oil supplements to help them with their issues Although fish oils are not the cure they can certainly help to minimise existing symptoms and perhaps prevent future problems. A recent study also looked at omega-3s and the effects of stress. Stress and the associated inflammation increase are not good for physical or mental health. We can’t stop stress from happening, but fish oil does seem to reduce the negative effects of that stress. Curcumin It has been found that curcumin may help with depression. From both mild to higher levels of depression. Chronic inflammation has been shown to be linked to depression and cause other mental health issues. Curcumin helps keep high levels of inflammation down by stopping free radicals getting out of hand. […]
Tennis Elbow – What To Do
Have you ever had pain in the elbow or forearm? This blog will cover Tennis Elbow. A common problem faced by many during day to day life and people performing at various sports. Tennis Elbow has a bad reputation and one that is commonly feared by people and can affect people to where they do not think anything can be done for it. But this blog is to help show you that you can get through it and to not let it have an effect on your day to day life. Tennis Elbow is pain on the outer side of the elbow named so because tennis players use those muscles often and so commonly develop the condition. The reasons Tennis Elbow worries a lot are many, but mainly of which is the difficulty in treating this very preventable problem. In most cases, treating a muscle that is inflamed and painful is a matter of unloading the tissues. That gets difficult with the elbow because we use our hands all the time. Also, we often think of treating tennis elbow as a musculature issue, when in reality it’s an insertion issue. Meaning that the muscles are inserting onto the bone. Tennis […]
Battle Of Your Breathe
In the clinic, we often get questions about how to avoid injuries and manage low back or neck pain. This blog will cover the functional implications that a faulty breathing mechanism can have on your body. Function vs Action Muscles have both actions and functions. During a movement that muscle can be asked to do either of these and it is often a sliding scale between one and the other. For example. If we choose your Gluteus Medius which is a muscle on the side of your hip that is commonly training by doing clamshells or hip abductions. For these exercises, your Gluteus Medius is being trained for its action. The action is abduction (lifting your leg out to the side) of the hip and external rotation. Because that muscle is not a very common movement you do day to day, let’s think about how the muscle moves when we are walking. The Gluteus Medius has the function of stabilising the lateral hip when you are walking. Meaning you can walk smoothly through your walking. Definitions Function: How muscles behave when we walk and breathe. Action: How muscles behave when we move the origin to insertion. So what happens when […]
What Is Causing Your Knee Pain?
Have you ever had knee pain that you do not know what is causing it and it keeps coming back? This blog will help you to understand what sort of knee pain you have and what is driving your pain. A lot of people develop knee pain while barbell training or playing sport but do not have a clear understanding of what is causing the pain. The common conditions we will cover today are: Illiotibial band Sydrome Patellofemoral Compression Syndrome Biomechanical Dysfuntion Patellar Tendinopathy Iliotibial Band Syndrome: The IT band is a thick band of fascia that starts at the hips and runs the entire length of your upper leg. The pain usually is on the outside of your knee. The reason for the pain is the compression caused by the thick IT band compressing on the bony part of the outside of your knee. Normally you will not get it from a specific incident but will gradually come on overtime. The pain can start as a dull ache and then progress into a sharp pain. Patellofemoral Compression Syndrome/ Biomechanical Dysfunction: If you have pain on your knee cap or underneath it is most likely down to a compression problem […]
