Currently, people will do anything to compete and perform at their best. When it comes down to game day, it is common for people to try and ignore their pain and then push through it. This goes back to the phrase we have been told from when we were young of ‘No pain, no gain’.
In the world today, no pain, no gain is frequently said and acted upon to cover up pain. We wrap our ankles and wrists before games, wear knee sleeves and take pain killers and use creams to get through training by keeping the pain at a low enough level in order to perform. Although this allows us to compete on a consistent basis but these temporary solutions for dealing with pain during competition and even training sessions have become regular occurrences for people during their routines.
So what can be the effects of pushing through pain?
Pain tells us that there may be injury occurring to the body. The type of pain can vary from sharp, stabbing or throbbing sensation. Pain can be muscular or you could be feeling it in a joint. It often occurs due to overuse, poor technique and inflammation. It is important to note that pain does not improve because of a proper warm-up or mobility work pre-session.
This is because pain is not a soreness. Whereas muscle soreness will almost always improve when you have done a throughout warmup. When your muscles are sore this is a natural part of training. So if you have done a warm-up and your pain improves it is most likely because you are just sore and can continue with training.
There are a few reasons why phishing through pain can be harmful. Firstly as mentioned earlier, pain can be a warning sign of a problem being caused for your body, similar to a check engine light on your dashboard. Although there may be times of pushing through pain to get a performance in, if it becomes part of your training routine it can be detrimental to your body and your progress. Continually ignoring pain is when injuries occur.
Pain also changes the way you move. This is because your body is trying to find a position where it is protected. But this can also affect your movement and therefore directly limit your mobility and diminish your strength. This is especially true for gym-goers when using a barbell. Because trying to push through the pain when you are lifting heavy will limit your development.
So do not ignore the signs with your body when it is in pain. Learn to embrace pain as a chance to fix your body so it can run for a long time safely.
If you suffer from pain and would like an examination and treatment to help relieve your symptoms and improve your movement patterns then contact the clinic today on 0578678904, direct message us on Facebook or book now.
Yours in Health
The Lawlor Clinic: Spine & Sport, Portlaoise, Laois
A lot of people get back pain but continue to either train through it or rest until the pain lessens only to get it again when they continue with the activity they were resting from. So this blog will cover the basics of back pain, the main ways that your training might be affecting it and how to prevent pain.
Your spine is not just a stack of bones piled on top of each other. It is more of a curved tower of small bones called vertebra, where each of these is separated by the bodies equivalent of a pillow, called a disc. The discs in between the vertebra provide support and create a cushioning effect when you are loading your back. Then your vertebra is connected by little joints called Facet joints. The purpose of these is to allow you to bend and twist through movements. All of these structures are held together and supported by different tissues. These are ligaments, muscles, fascia and joint capsules.
So what actually causes back pain when people are training or doing general movements at work or at home?
The simplest answer is that pain is the result of excessive stress or strain on the structures of your back. Pain is more commonly due to an accumulation of microtrauma rather than one actual event. Three main areas that can cause a build-up of microtrauma are:
Poor movement or technique
Excessive loading of the spine during training causing an increase in compression to the spine
Poor training programming or periodisation (not enough rest)
Your body is built to resist a certain amount of force before it fails and gets injured. Athletes who can safely push themselves to the point just before the limit will find a big increase in improving strength and performance. But pushing past this limit is where pain occurs and injuries occur.
In the day when we are moving, bending, twisting and also when we go to workout the spine is most efficient when stacked in a neutral position. Microtrauma occurs when the spine moves out of this neutral spine position.
For example when deadlifting with an excessively rounded back, or having a butt wink when squatting. Also, microtrauma can occur when you load your back excessively. This microtrauma builds up and then gets to the point we mentioned previously where pain occurs.
Often the point of pain at one part during a movement for example coming out of the hole of a squat and feeling a pop in the back or if you were just brushing your teeth in the morning and you felt your back give way. It is likely down to the movements you have done previously that then mean doing a simple thing causes pain in your back. So having proper form and managing your training loads are vital to keeping your back healthy and pain-free.
So if you are suffering from pain and would like treatment for it, or would like an assessment to see where your imbalances and potential injuries may originate from contact the clinic today on 0578678904, direct message us on Facebook or book now.
Yours in Health
The Lawlor Clinic: Spine & Sport, Portlaoise, Laois
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 the sore joint. While rest is helpful for repetitive motion injury, in the clinic with techniques such as massage therapy can restore normal function, relieve muscle spasms and pain quickly.
Enhance Performance
In the clinic, we will do a full functional screen to see where the body is not moving efficiently and help recognise where we can help improve your movement to help your sports performance.
Treatment methods we use in the clinic are:
Chiropractic adjustments
Mobilisation
Active Release Technique (ART)
Dry needling
Diet advice
Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization (DNS)
Laser therapy
If you have niggle or feel tight in certain areas and want to get it sorted, then contact the clinic for a full functional assessment to see where your imbalances are. To do this contact the clinic today on 0578678904, direct message us on Facebook or book now.
Yours in Health
The Lawlor Clinic: Spine & Sport, Portlaoise, Laois
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 elbow pain the thought process is to stretch out forearms. But this is treating the symptoms, not the cause. The root cause is often from being restricted in shoulder movement.
So, if you are having elbow pain or even if you are not you can try this quick test. Hold your hands out in front of you with your arms straight and turn your palms upwards. A lot of the time the you will see a difference from side to side with how much you can turn your palms upwards. You may also find you are compensating to get this movement from the wrists or feel stress through the elbow. If this is the case then helping your shoulder mobility will prevent pain from occurring or if you are in pain, be the resolving factor in your pain.
If you want to know more about potential causes of injuries or get your pain sorted, then contact the clinic for a full functional assessment to see where your imbalances are. To do this contact the clinic today on 0578678904, direct message us on Facebook or book now.
Yours in Health
The Lawlor Clinic: Spine & Sport, Portlaoise, Laois
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 day so you do not feel like you are crashing throughout the day.
Stay hydrated
Before and during your workout it is very important to stay hydrated. So if you know you will be training later you should make an effort to make sure you are hydrated before. You can also include natural electrolytes into your diet such as coconut water or pink Himalayan sea salt.
Be patient
After a long period of time off it is normal to have lost some of your strength or general physical fitness. So if you find it difficult to bench press what you used to or the number of reps has decreased don’t get discouraged. Set a goal to work to over the coming weeks and gradually increase your weights and sets. This will give you a great platform to get to where you were pre COVID and pugs beyond where you previously were.
If you have taken a break from the gym and you are feeling stiff or want to prevent a possible injury when you are back training then contact the clinic today on 0578678904, direct message us on Facebook or book now.
Yours in Health
The Lawlor Clinic: Spine & Sport, Portlaoise, Laois
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 of stretch-strengthen and then repeat, failing to address the root cause of the tightness in the muscles.
Put simply you need to ask yourself why muscle is tight to begin with. This will help you get rid of the mindset of simply stretching a type muscle and therefore allow you to address underpinning factor. And this is how you will make a long-term change to your flexibility.
Some examples of muscular tightness is being down to stability issues are:
Hamstring tightness could be down to core muscle weaknesses
Stiff shoulders could be because of weak rotator cuff muscles
Tight calves should be down to weak muscles at the front of the leg or hip stability issues
In the clinic, we do a full functional assessment on every new patient coming in. This allows us to find the true cause of your pain or tightness and therefore create a long term change. So, if you suffer from long term tightness or muscular pain and would like us to assess and treat you, then contact the clinic today on 0578678904, direct message us on Facebook or book now.
Yours in Health
The Lawlor Clinic: Spine & Sport, Portlaoise, Laois
Chances are you know someone with a hamstring injury or have had one yourself. If you have had a hamstring injury you will know first hand they can be very difficult to get rid of. Also, you are faced with the problem that if you have a hamstring strain you have a very high chance of re-injuring the hamstring again.
But what are hamstring tears?
Class I: There are only a few muscle or tendon fibers are torn. You will usually have pain during or after activity which would be worse when sprinting. There may be a small amount of swelling and discomfort. Usually associated with minimal strength loss. You will likely be able to walk directly after the injury.
Class II: A partial tear of the fibers. You will usually have pain during activity which stops activity. There will be a significant loss of strength and a significant amount of pain. You will likely have some pain when walking.
Class III: This is when there is extensive tears to the muscle, you will usually have felt pain immediately and may have fallen to the ground. Your range of movement at 24 hours is usually significantly reduced with pain on walking. There is usually weakness in contraction.
Class IV: A complete rupture of the muscle/tendon. This will be associated with a huge loss of muscle function, often an inability to walk due to pain and massive bruising on the back of the thigh. This class can often be less painful than class III.
How to help
If you have suffered a low-grade strain of your hamstring, here are some explanations of exercises that you might find useful. If you have sustained what you think may be a grade 2 or above injury, it is recommended that you go see a medical practitioner for some hands on help and to effectively rehab the muscle.
A good exercise to start for a low grade hamstring strain is a bridge. Start by lying on your back with your knees bent. Drive your heels into the ground and imagine you’re about to get punched in the stomach (this will make sure your core is braced). Then drive your hips upwards and squeeze your butt muscles. You should then hold this postition for 5 seconds and then lower yourself to the starting position. If this is painful then STOP, you don’t want to over strain the tissues that are healing. 2-3 sets of 15 reps.
Also it is important to work on your balance. To do this, stand on one leg, then do a small hip hinge and attempt to hold this position for 10-20 seconds. Start with your eyes open and then once you are comfortable with this you can try doing it with your eyes shut which will make it much more challenging. Also, try to do this exercise barefoot. 2 sets of 5 holds.
If would suffer from recurrent hamstring issues, then contact the clinic today on 0578678904, direct message us on Facebook or book now.
Yours in Health
The Lawlor Clinic: Spine & Sport, Portlaoise, Laois
Good luck to everyone running the grueling Dublin Marathon in a couple of weeks time, including our very own Karen, running her second marathon! The weeks leading up to the marathon will be tough, and not only the actual running of the race, but the recovery can be just as painful! So with that being said, here are our top tips for a fast recovery.
Recovery After the Race:
How fast you recover after a tough race depends on a number of different factors including:
Actual time spent in running preparation
How much rest you got pre-race
How good your nutrition was pre-race to fuel your body
Our top tips to aid recovery:
Rest: In the next 7-10 days try to get as much rest as possible, aiming for 8 hours sleep per night. This will help speed up the recovery process after the marathon.
Ice Baths: If you can withstand the cold, ice baths are a great way to help fight delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS)
Nutrition: For electrolyte recovery try Nuun or BioSteel performance and recovery drinks. With each meal consume some protein (15-30g), take omega 3 supplements, plenty fruit & vegetables especially pineapple which is high in an anti inflammatory called Bromelain. It is advisable to take in essential mineral salts that will have been lost through sweat during the marathon. We recommend Himalayan Salts to help replenish these salts.
Keep moving: Avoid running for the first days after the marathon, but do take short walks and move as much as possible
Laser: Laser therapy is a great post-race tool to help aid recovery. It helps speed the healing process in the tissues
Kinesiotape: Lymphatic Applications and Cut Outs will help the drainage of the legs and to help reduce DOMS.
Sports Massage/foam rolling: Both are good ways to help your body to recover after the race.
Running Injuries
For some of you, you may have picked up an injury or two during the race. It is important to have these injuries assessed and treated appropriately. Don’t just let it go! Call us today to see if we can help with your marathon recovery!
Yours in Health,
The Lawlor Clinic Portlaoise
Chiropractic | Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization | Active Release Techniques (ART®)