How Can Chiropractic Care Improve Sports Performance?
For or any athlete or gym-goer, the ability to move pain-free and being mobile on the field is key to performance. Whether you play rugby, football, hurling and weightlifting, these all require muscle strength, flexibility, proper body mechanics and technique to prevent injury and perform your best. Preventing Pain and Injury People who are training consistently for a sport or activity are more likely to be stiff and sore after training or a match. This is especially relevant for those who participate in contact sports like rugby. In the clinic, we have a wide range of treatment options, which will help target your muscles and joints to gain more flexibility and decrease painful movement. This can help decrease the risk of injury because it encourages flexibility and movement so you have a better range of motion to throw, catch and run. Restore Function Many sports require repetitive motion that can lead to overuse injuries. This is because you need consistent practice at a certain skill to achieve accuracy and distance. This means muscles around the arm and shoulder can become injured. If the muscles and joints can become painful and inflamed you will start to limit the movement to protect […]
Rugby Injuries And How To Prevent Them
Rugby is one of the most popular sports around today and is one of the toughest on the body. As many people who play rugby know, there are few areas of the body that can avoid getting hit or injured while playing because of how heavy of a contact sport it is. In this blog, we’re going to look at which injuries are the most common, and what actions you can take to avoid them. Common injuries It is common for players to get bruises or strains to the muscles when playing rugby. Almost half of rugby injuries are on the muscles but many can be avoided or prevented. So knowing the best ways to do this is crucial to your game management. Another 25% of injuries are head injuries. With the main head injury being concussions. Fractures are another common and more serious injury involved in rugby. Also sprains such as ankle sprains (which are the most common) can occur at ligaments in various areas of the body for example the knee, shoulder and ankle Risk factors? Although the injuries mentioned above are the most common injuries in rugby, different people will be at risk in different ways. For […]
Elbow pain while squatting?
Lots of people come into the clinic complaining of elbow pain. Commonly people have pain on the inside of the elbow and say it is down to overuse of the elbow after a long week or overtraining and the elbow has flared up because of it. But with pain on the inside of the elbow, it is not always down to overuse but down to misuse. With elbow injuries, if you just look at the site of pain and blame the elbow for the cause of the problem you might be missing the root cause of the issue. This is because the muscles which are around your forearm attach onto you humerus which is the upper arm bone and this starts at the shoulder. People spend a lot of time in a hunched over position with the arms turned inwards and therefore when you have to turn your arms out for example when you hold the bar squatting or doing barbell curls, if the movement is not coming from the shoulder then the movement has to come from the elbow. This creates stress at the elbow as it is not designed to overly rotate. A lot of the time with […]
Working From Home
With people still working from home it can become a big change in peoples lives. Therefore this blog post will go through the most effective ways to work from home safely and efficiently. Get into a good routine It is important to get into a routine, so a good way to do this is make a plan of how your working day is going to look. Having this routine set out from the moment you start work through until when you finish will make sure you get what needs to be done completed and also prevent you from overworking. Having a routine also will be less stressful. This is because knowing when you will finish will keep you motivated to work during your work hours and then switch off when you finish. Also it can be useful to have a schedule so you can tick off the jobs at the end of the day. Take breaks Making sure you have breaks from work is crucial for your over all health. Our bodies are designed to move about all day so sitting down for long periods can increase the risk of injury. To help this it can be useful to stand […]
Tips For Returning To Training
With gyms opening up again and sports teams having training and matches, everyone will be getting much more active over the coming weeks. But after a long rest period, rushing back into training at full speed can cause an injury. So, if it is a casual round of golf or getting back into the gym here are some tips and advice to get performing safely. Stretch Before training, it is important to do a targeted warm-up before you start actively. This might not mean doing a 5-minute cycle before your gym session because instead, it will be beneficial to target to muscles you are training that day rather than just simply getting the heart rate up. For example, if you are going for a run you should focus on warming up your hips and legs. This can be done with exercises such as lunges and side shuffles. Then some hip mobilising exercises such as hip CARs which are attached below. Fuel your body Having the right food before a workout is vital to performing at a good intensity. This doesn’t mean consuming protein shake after protein shake but instead having a well-balanced meal before your workout and also throughout the […]
Why you need more Omega-3
What are the benefits of supplementing your diet with Omega 3? Omega-3 fatty acids play a vital role in signalling roles for your heart, muscles and nervous system. This makes them a crucial requirement for you to consume as part of your diet. This should come to 250-500mg per day. If you are deficient in Omega 3 fatty acids it can be beneficial to have your diet include foods high in Omega 3 or supplement your diet. These benefits include: Decrease muscle loss during immobilisation and recovery from injury. Increases muscle recovery Helps with cardiovascular health Omega-3 is also a great natural anti-inflammatory Muscle recovery? Periods of muscle unloading or limb immobilization result in can cause muscles to get smaller and weaker. It has been shown omega-3 fatty acid ingestion may alleviate immobilization induced muscle loss. Muscle health? Consuming enough omega-3 fatty acid aids in protection against exercise-induced muscle damage (the feeling you get after a tough workout) with some studies demonstrating that omega-3 fatty acid ingestion reduces losses in muscle strength and the general feeling of soreness following exercise. How to include it in your diet? Omega-3 fatty acid sources include fish such as mackerel, salmon, herring or plant-based […]
Understanding Your Muscle Tightness
Have you been working on your mobility and flexibility but over time have not seen that much of a change? This may be because you are failing to address the route cause of the issue. Currently, runners, cyclists, home gym-goers and more are chasing the idea of getting an increase in range of motion. This is done to either feel less stiff, perform better or just as simple as being able to touch your toes. But the techniques being implemented may not be causing any long term change or potentially your risk of injury. Doing mobility training such as stretches forcing your muscles past their normal range of motion and therefore gives us the ability to perform exercises in more unstable positions. Following this, the tendency is to then train strength immediately after mobility training in these unstable positions. End ranges are unstable positions so the perceived threat to the integrity of the joint is very high and therefore increases the risk of injury. This is because the body is trying to protect us from that unstable position because it lacks the joint stability to be in that position in day-to-day life. So often people get trapped in the cycle […]
Fix your ankles
If you suffer from stiff ankles or tight calves this blog post is for you. The assumption to make when you have tight calves is to stretch the calves. However, to gain length in your calves it is often helpful to train the muscles at the front of your lower leg. This is because they are often weak in people who have chronically tight calves. This is because stretching causes a mechanical change in the muscles whereas strengthening causes a change in the way your body perceives length. What are the problems if you have poor ankle mobility? Common for people to roll off the outside of their foot when walking. Big toe bunions can form If your ankles are tight when walking your calf is used more, therefore becomes tighter. Your body mass is more forwards when walking Collapsing of your foot arch So when you are at home instead of forcing your knee over your ankle to create mobility in your ankle, try to strengthen the front of your lower leg which will allow you to access more range of motion for the long term. This will be more long term because you won’t be relying on an […]
Headaches and Hydration
Headaches can affect peoples life from work, hobbies and when you are trying to relax at home. The most common headache is tension-type headaches. This can cause pain in the back of the head, into the neck and around your eyes. This typically happens on both sides of the head. There are many factors that contribute to tension-type headaches. These include: Stress Anxiety Not drinking enough water Holding your head in one position for a long time Sleeping in an awkward position Eyestrain Head and neck injury Clenching your jaw or grinding your teeth How can chiropractic care help your headache? In the clinic, we can first check the lifestyle factors that may be aggravating your headaches and give you ways to manage them better. This includes looking at your posture and giving home exercises to you. We perform a full examination on every new patient which should identify the triggering factors for your headache. We will also do various treatment methods that best suit you. These can be: Soft tissue massage Active Release Techniques Chiropractic adjustments Joint mobilisation Home rehabilitation Drink more water Especially with the weather warming up, it is important to touch on water consumption for […]
Is elbow pain getting on your nerves?
Elbow injuries are a common injury in desk workers and athletes. In people who lift weights they are one of the most common injuries to have. Although the elbow may appear to be a simple hinge joint that simply has two movements (bending or straightening the elbow), the reality is far from it. The elbow is a more complicated joint than it seems because the movement occurs between three bones and surrounding this are 16 small muscles. These help to not only straighten and bend your elbow but also rotate it as your palm is either up or down. Although many elbow issues are due to overuse of the muscles causing a repetitive strain injury, it is common for people to cause an injury to one of the several nerves in the arm. This can cause tingling, numbness, a burning sensation and possible weakness in the hand. A type of exercise that is used to help nerve pain is nerve gliding. This aims to either stretch the nerve or glide the nerve. Gliding techniques will stretch the nerve and have the aim of increasing the tension and pressure through the nerve. This sometimes makes symptoms worse in people. Sliding techniques […]
