East End Physio

East End Physio Physiotherapy, strength training and breath work

03/11/2024

For some people physical pain is worn with a badge of honour, I get it when it is under conditions such as competition, survival, tests or rights of passage, but experiencing pain in regular training sessions or in daily life and being proud of it? that doesn't make sense to me. Can one be fit while having chronic pain or well while suffering from pain? Is Wellness the foundation of which fitness is built upon? or are they developed independently of each other?

Would be nice to see you there...
12/26/2023

Would be nice to see you there...

If you ever stubbed your toe, you know that moment of intense, mind numbing, rage inducing pain, yet you know its not ap...
12/19/2023

If you ever stubbed your toe, you know that moment of intense, mind numbing, rage inducing pain, yet you know its not appropriate to punch the closest person standing near you, that wouldn't be cool and definitely not socially accepted. But when we get our emotions stubbed and feel that mind numbing, rage inducing emotional pain, most people tend to emotionally punch, kick, bite whoever is the closest person standing by...and tends to get away with it socially.
physical pain and emotional pain are not that different!

12/18/2023

Why do you go to the gym? Why do people go to the gym? I think that the two most common answers would be to feel better and look better. As a physio and strength coach who is interested in peoples wellness, appearance is not my primary concern. From my experience, most people whom train primarily for 'feeling better' will end up looking better to some extent, but people whom primarily train to look better don't necessarily improve their function or health. However, both reasons are about some form of improvement. Injury is a form of regression since it inhibits your performance at the gym and reaching your goals, therefore, regardless of your goal, the first goal of all people whom use the gym should be ‘don’t get injured in the gym’!
Seems so obvious but the number of people that get injured in the gym is pretty mind boggling.

12/15/2023

I’m in the business of rehab and injury prevention. But what does it mean when a recreational athlete or someone who regularly participates in physical activity never gets injured? It seems like this is what we strive for all of our clients, but to never get injured….does that mean that this person never really skirted or pushed into the edges of his/hers ability? That he/she never took a risk during their participation in sports?
When we talk about emotions, we want to be happy most of the time but understand that we need to experience the whole range of emotions from sad to angry to happy but mostly be in a place of peace with ourselves and the world, but we know that never experiencing negative emotions isn’t healthy for us. Does this also apply to the physical body? Are injuries the same as negative emotions, where we want to experience some, is there any merit to experience an injury?

12/13/2023

We contracted out building our homes, then contracted out making our clothing, then contracted out growing our food, in the western world contracted out cooking and food preparation, now a days we are contracting out our inner feedback loops from our body to technology, and (laugh as you will) soon we will be contracting out decision making (algorithms predicting behaviour are already here and exponentially getting more sophisticated). Raises the question, does this look like progression or regression of society?

12/12/2023

A growing phenomena In the past decade is the introduction of gadgets that claim to be able to measure functions such as energy expenditure, steps walked per day, quality and quantity of sleep etc. These devices are aggressively marketed to us and seem like they could provide useful information that would help translate to better health and wellness outcomes. For some, especially those who have cardio vascular issues, whom require ongoing monitoring, they probably do. However, risks need to be evaluated as well. The first question though, is wether they do a good job measuring what they claim they do. Meta analysis (research analyzing all the trials done trying to answer the question of wether these devices measure accurately what they claim to measure) have concluded that these devices aren't as accurate as they claim to be. Now we can ask, even if the technology improves and becomes more accurate, are there risks to using these technologies? In my opinion (no data to back it up), I see two main issues with these technologies.

First, I predict that people using these technologies will end up exercising less than their peers without the technology (reminds me of the social media websites and apps story, initially these websites brought the promise of connecting people and communities together but in practice ended up helping create more feeling of loneliness and isolation in individuals and societies), having number of steps per day achieved and then feeling like there is no need to further move or exercise, or giving out on a workout because the gadget said you didn’t get a good nights sleep.

Second, I think there is a problem when turning to technology with questions we should know the answer to by paying attention to our body's own feedback loops. So the biggest disadvantage here is loosing the ability to connect with our body and listen to what is going on inside us, or in other words, figuring out what we are feeling inside requires practice (like emotions), using a gadget to give us the answer instead of us practicing noticing how we feel will diminish our awareness. Less awareness (physical or emotional) makes one more vulnerable to developing problems. I think each of us should be able to tell whether they got a full nights sleep and feel rested or not, wether they had enough to eat during or after a meal or wether they moved or exercised enough for the day.

I guess we will wait and see where this phenomena takes us..

12/11/2023

Sometimes we forget the very basic principles that we build everything 'fitness' on, here is one of them:

The dictionary defines exercise as "an activity requiring a physical effort, carried out to sustain or improve health and fitness", For me, the key words here are 'physical effort', is walking from your bedroom to the washroom a physical effort? is walking your dog or cycling to work a physical effort? the answer is different for different people, so the definition of physical effort is very subjective. The answer lies in the most important principal in fitness, the overload principal which states that in order to improve your fitness, the activity you choose to partake in has to be more intense than a daily activity, and if done overtime, gradually increasing intensities, adaptation occurs (the process is called progressive overloading). In other words 'physical effort' means doing something in a higher intensity than the effort required for your daily activities. And please don't get me wrong, being active physically is far healthier than not moving at all but physical activity isn't the same as exercising.

As a health and fitness professional for more than 20 years, I have noticed a phenomena in which more people are gradually beginning to think of their daily activities as exercise. To my mind, this is a response to living in a society, which as a whole, is progressively moving less (physically) even though the science is showing us conclusively that movement is critical for general health (way beyond just orthopaedic health). I believe that most people know this innately (regardless of the scientific proof) and equate physical activity with exercise as a way to rationalize to themselves that they are being proactive in taking care of their own health.

12/11/2023

Phew...week three of this new adventure is over, love the space I'm in, after working for 17 years in a treatment room with no windows, its so refreshing to have natural light in my treatment room.
So far having a better than expected turn out, I hope it continues this way.. This unknowing of how next week will turn out is a bit unnerving, as humans unpredictability is one of the banes of our existence, so I guess after trying to provide the best service possible, I'll just have to practice trust that the universe will provide.

12/11/2023

WELCOME TO EAST END PHYSIO
If you’re suffering from orthopaedic or musculoskeletal pain, we can help you on your rehabilitation journey. Whether it’s an acute injury or chronic pain, a highly-skilled and experienced physiotherapist will create and implement a customized treatment plan designed specifically for your individual needs and goals.

Address

290 Carlaw Avenue Unit 101 (inside Enfield Athletics)
Toronto, ON
M4M3L1

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when East End Physio posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category