Anna Curnow Physiotherapy

31/08/2025

A most wonderful afternoon cheering on the Irish women!

🏉 🇮🇪 vs 🇪🇸

27/08/2025

More evidence (as if we needed it) on the benefits of physical activity for young people.

Humans NEED movement. Whether it’s walking, dancing, football or cricket.

Not just for a healthy heart, or strong bones and joints.

But for a healthy mind, social connections and overall wellbeing.

It is recommended that everyone under 18 has 1 hour of physical activity as a minimum every day.

And remember, the best exercise is one that you enjoy, it doesn’t have to be ‘sport’ in the traditional sense.

22/08/2025

A message from a friend this morning….

It made me smile but it’s relentless isn’t it?

The noise about health, nutrition and lifestyle.

So here’s a friendly reminder, most of it is utter 🐂 💩

And please listen to nutrition advice from dieticians. Not fitfluencers who make their money getting the nations kids active, non clinical medics making their fortune as TV presenters or epidemiologists now masquerading as nutrition experts making a fortune selling glucose monitors to non diabetics.

And definitely not podcasts hosts.

Mentioning no names of course….

20/08/2025

Ever feel like your energy tank is running on empty - even when your workouts aren’t that tough?

You might be dealing with low energy availability (LEA), which is a fancy way of saying your body isn’t getting enough fuel for daily life and training.

What causes it?

▪️Not adjusting meals when training ramps up - or unintentionally under fuelling.
▪️Disordered eating behaviours or clinical eating disorders.
▪️Pressure or desire to hit a certain body image/aesthetic.

What are the signs?

▪️Feeling wiped out or unmotivated, even after rest.
▪️Frequent niggles, colds, slow healing injuries or stress fractures.
▪️Drops in performance, loss of adaptation to training.
▪️Hormonal changes - different or absent menstrual cycles or loss of libido, er****on or sexual function.
▪️Feeling cold all the time.
▪️Low mood, brain fog, irritability, anxiety.
▪️Obsessive thoughts about food, skipping meals, trying to ‘earn’ food.

If LEA is sustainaned it can impact on bone health, hormonal health, immune function and performance - even if you ‘look fine’ on the outside.

What should I do about it?

▪️Consider getting professional support from a dietitian regarding fuelling your training.
▪️If you are struggling with your relationship with food or training, seek professional mental health support.
▪️Try to adjust your training to allow your body to recover, this can take some time.
▪️Remember fuelling isn’t weakness- it is self care so you can keep moving, training and feeling good!
▪️Unfollow any social media accounts that make you feel bad about your body or promote disordered behaviours around food or exercise.

Remember, you are not alone.

Seek the support of qualified, experienced professionals to help you on your road to recovery.

17/08/2025

Online booking is proving super popular.

You can sit, in the comfort of your own home, at a time convenient to you.

You can choose your practitioner, see real time appointment availability for all services and find a time that suits your diary.

Easy peasy 🍋 squeezy 😊

https://anna-curnow-physiotherapy.uk2.cliniko.com/bookings

14/08/2025

Good Luck to everyone receiving their A’ Level results today!

The hard work and waiting is finally over.

Whether the results are what you hoped for or not, remember, they don’t define you or you worth.

13/08/2025

There is a lot of health and fitness noise online, and it can all get a bit confusing.

This question comes up a lot as there are evangelists in both camps!

As with pretty much anything in health, the short answer is….

It depends!

People with specific goals such as endurance athletes or powerlifters will, of course, have different training biases.

But for those looking to generally maintain health and fitness?

A mix of the two is best.

A study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in 2022 concluded that, while both types of exercise have advantages, regularly engaging in both had the greatest impact on overall health and mortality risk reduction.

But how much specifically?

The current guidance for adults is:

🏃🏻‍♀️ 150-300 minutes moderate intensity or 75-100 vigorous intensity aerobic activity per week (think fast walking, jogging, cycling, swimming).

AND

🏋🏻‍♀️ 2 strength training sessions per week - this can be bodyweight, machines, free weights whatever!

And for U18 - a MINIMUM of 1 hour of physical activity. Every day.

So gym lads and lasses…. Get running.

And endurance lads and lasses…get lifting!

Your mind, heart, lungs, muscles and bones will thank you for it!

13/08/2025

I have had the absolute pleasure of knowing this family for a few years.

Phil is the epitome of an absolute gentleman who has endured so much in the last year.

But speaking to him after his surgery, to have his jaw and some of his tongue removed, he was SO full of excitement at the prospect of cycling with Sir Chris Hoy and other riders with stage 4 cancer.

I couldn’t be happier that in a few weeks time he will be fulfilling his goal, with his lovely son in law Jon as his support rider.

Aged 80, post major head and neck surgery and serious illness, raising money for MacMillan Cancer Support. What an absolute legend ❤️

If you have any spare pennies, here is ths gofundme page.

Go Team Cox/Hawkesford!

Following Sir Chris Hoy's diagnosis with Stage 4 cancer, Tour De 4 was establis… Jon Hawkesford needs your support for My Tour De 4 Fundraiser to Fight Cancer

12/08/2025

Chatting with someone yesterday about their longstanding struggles with sleep, we began to talk about the use of smartwatches etc to track sleep.

Whilst this person had tried many apps, supplements and techniques to help their sleep.

One thing they said really struck me.

“Sometimes I wake up feeling like I’ve slept well and then my watch tells me I haven’t. It’s almost like my watch determines my day.”

This is something I come across frequently, feeling good from a training session, sleep or otherwise and then our watch tells us we have been ‘unproductive’ or whatever….

Unproductive by what metric? We don’t always do things for data.

Whilst using these things to train for a specific goal can be helpful……

Remember they are not always accurate. That you are not a computer, your health behaviour is not about targets. It’s about how it makes you feel.

Movement is still helpful without hitting Strava segments.

My advice to this person?

Take your watch off for a bit. Accept that sometimes your sleep isn’t great, remember you have loads of other positive health behaviours. And of course try to find ways to improve your sleep, but don’t allow your tech to make you obsess over it.

And certainly don’t let it determine your day….

10/08/2025

How am I rehabilitating my injury as a Physio?

Back in June I posted about a neck problem that was causing me to need some time off work.

The official diagnosis for this is C7 Cervical Radiculopathy.

Essentially the C7 nerve root in my neck is being compressed causing neural arm pain, pins and needles and weakness.

This is not new and I have had nerve conduction studies and EMG tests previously.

But this was my second flare up in short succession.

So how do I manage this?

1) Calm it down - sleep was disturbed, pain was severe and my function was low. So medication for the win along with modifying activity that aggravated it (basically anything using my right arm 😬). Not easy and generally pretty miserable tbh. This stage also included things that help manage symptoms including hands on Physio and massage.

2) Build things back up - my shoulder and mid back mobility had become poor so as soon as I could I started working on this. Resistance bands have been helpful to facilitate movement, along with, mobility poles and yoga.

3) Work on strength - now this one is tricky. The nerve is sufficiently compressed that, right now, my right triceps don’t work. I really struggle to even straighten my elbow against gravity. I can’t push myself up at all. So I have been trying some very light tricep exercises along with more global strength. This is the stage where I am most frustrated. Brain and muscle are not connected!

4) Long term strategy - this is addressing the causative factors. Stress, uber long working hours, not enough general exercise or doing things that fill my soul. As a family we have committed to doing this together. Accountability is helpful and we all enjoy getting out in nature.

5) Accept that things take time (also super tricky). These can take 12 weeks or more to really improve. I am around 7 weeks in now. The pain is loads better and I am off all meds. Still a way to go to fully restore function.

So this is what a treatment plan looks like. A mix of active rehabilitation, pain relieving modalities, realistic expectations and addressing causative factors for the long term.

08/08/2025

Is your relationship with exercise actually healthy?

Or do you over rely on it as a coping tool?

Exercise dependency is super common, and you are most definitely not alone.