Injury Rehab Mentor

11/06/2023

😴 SLEEP 😴

If you are starting to become more active (found a enjoyable sport, changing your lifestyle for health reasons) I would advise you need to be mindful of your sleep hygiene and overall sleeping time.

Delving into the mechanisms of this rather weird multi-faceted process…

(I say weird as when you think about it, for 6-10hrs of our 24hr day your body momentarily shuts down)

…it is such a complex process and plays such an important role in our health and wellbeing.

So many clients have produced barriers with getting the recommended 7-9hrs of sleep per day and some things you just can’t change (job, young children)

All I can say is seek advice earlier rather than later, find what works for you as everyone is individual and don’t get sucked into these ‘quick fixes’, things take time to change.

If you want to know about ‘what is sleep’ check out this resources:

https://www.sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works

18/12/2022

Appreciation Post 🫶🏻

6months of opening the IRM Sports Injury Clinic and the feeling is still surreal. For a 1st clinic space I couldn’t be happier with the end product.

I want to paise Eastbourne United AFC for providing the space necessary for this to happen; bringing the standards up to lower levels by providing a better level of care.
It will be a moment when I pass this on to another young therapist in the future and I’ll be forever stamping my mark on this club with such a long history (1984)

Shout outs to:
CR Floors - For doing a great job on the luxury vinyl
Sign Wizard - For the car and front window graphics.
Hastings Antique Centre - Providing an unbelievable deal on a captains desk and chair.
Rise Electrical Limited - For bringing light to the project.
Helium Badger - Guy Callaby’s artwork is the icing on the cake, go check him out!

George Murray - Being my go to plumber
Josh Higgs - Sorting out my carpentry needs, highly recommended.
Matthew (Simmo) Simpson - for the TRX, resistance bands.

Big thanks to Aniel, mi familia + The Real G’s for helping with the set up and continue to be there for support!

Onwards and upwards 🫶🏼

13/04/2021

Back again with some more content to apply to your training 💪🏼

Check out this study, shout out to Physio Network who do a really good job of making studies easily digestible 👌🏼

📝Different foot positions (during a calf raise) affect different portions of the calf musculature.

So you could in theory take this idea and apply it to other muscles around the body 🤔

E.g. Change your foot position when doing a lunge, apply variations of squats to you training, hand positions for pull ups.

Remember we don’t just move in one direction!

Effect of foot position on muscle activity during heel raises 🦵

Heel raises are popular for plantar flexor strengthening, however no studies have examined the effect of foot position on muscle activity around the ankle during this exercise 📈

A recent study assessed EMG activity when having the foot in ‘neutral’ as well as 30° abducted (toes out) or adducted (toes in).

😉 Want to know what they found?

⭐️ Exercise rehab expert Stephen King has reviewed this paper for us, and we’ve made his review freely available for you

🔗 Click here to read it now 👉🏻 https://www.physio-network.com/foot-position-calf-raises/

23/02/2021

Food for thought 🤔

How many of us have been told that one of the main reasons for their lower back pain (LBP) is due to their posture and/or the curvature of their spine?

A 2016 research paper into this topic has seen NO significant difference in lumbar lordosis (lower back spinal curve) between people with back pain and those without.

How can we blame something that we see in people without pain as a cause of pain for those that do?

28/01/2021

Food for thought 🤔

When managing pain, think about your lifestyle factors:
- Sleep
- Hydration
- Nutrition
- Activities/Exercise
- Stress

All of these factors you have control over. So before consulting a medical professional try altering them (to the best of your abilities).

You'll be amazed how effective it is!

13/01/2021

The Recovery Climb! 💪🏼

Get yourself out of the pain spiral and and start the climb!

Follow these three steps:

Step one - Make The Call 📲
Find yourself a physio (one that you get along with and feel comfortable around)

Step two - Acceptance & Education 😌
Open up and spare no detail! A more thorough history (past injuries, day-to-day life, lifestyle factors etc.) means the better we can 'paint the picture' and identify the true stressors that are contributing to your pain.

Step 3 - Guided Movement
(Exercise is the best medicine)

04/01/2021

The Pain Spiral 😥

I find pictures speak louder than words so here is 'The Pain Spiral'.

Just reiterating the point I made in the last post that pain is so complex and multifactorial & rehab should focus on all the identified factors surrounding that individual, not just the pain itself.

I've been caught in the spiral with a emergency appendectomy (appendicitis)… but luckily enough I had (and still do) a great support network around me, was at a good level of fitness prior (training for a gymnastics competition) and because I knew what it was + being a common procedure I had no stigmas or fears surrounding my recovery.

However not everyone is so lucky...but that's where IRM can help!

31/12/2020

Hello Everyone,

Did you know pain isn't just a sign of tissue damage...? 🧐 It's a lot more complex, especially with patients experiencing chronic pain lasting >6months.

Sports medicine in general has taken a holistic approach to pain (not just looking at the physical symptoms/signs but the mental & social factors as well) and rightly so!

It's very easy to fall into 'The Pain Spiral'
For Example:
* You roll your ankle during a match and struggle to bare any weight on it. (its ok though, seen the doctor and she says a couple of weeks off and it should be back to normal, sick!)
* So you can't train or move without the presence of pain, its there when you wake and there when you go to sleep and now 2 months by...
* Complete inactivity is starting to get frustrating and not being able to see team mates or friends as much pushes you out of the loop and become isolated.
* Stigma of the injury, unhelpful pain myths & lack of guidance now pushes this belief that you'll never get back to 'pre-injury state'
* Leading to sleep problems, anxiety and depression (which all have been shown to contribute to a heightened pain sensation.)

All in all guys & gals, if you find yourself plateauing with your recovery, if you haven't already, look at your sleep, nutrition, hydration and stress levels.

& also smile more 😁

Have a Happy New Year! 🥳 & any questions regarding a pain your experiencing don't hesitate to give me a msg!

16/12/2020

Good Morning Everyone! 🎅

Hope you all are on track to getting your Xmas shopping done and dusted! & with the mince pies and drinks flowing in a steady (but continuous) fashion every evening (myself included) it's even more important now to spend time on yourself (10-50minutes) being active and getting that heart of yours pumping!

Check out this lovely illustration by BelievePerform showing the positive effects of walking, yes thats right, just walking for 30minutes per day! 🤯

Too many benefits to remember...So give it a go!

I tend to do my walks in the early mornings, making sure I take a bottle of water as the body is in a dehydrated state after you sleep. I find it allows me to wake up progressively and it also gives me time to check emails and think over the plan for the day.

Share it with someone who needs a reminder! Who knows, this might just make their day a little bit easier 😊

08/12/2020

Afternoon everyone!

What’s everyone’s thoughts on Yoga/Pilates?

The message I took from practising yoga over the lockdown periods was to no matter what you are doing, you should set aside 10-50minutes of your day to focus on yourself and do something active.

It may be a bit wishy washy for some (like myself) but it preps you for the day and it definitely ain’t easy...😅

I would recommend ‘Yoga with Adriana’ if you want to start your day right.

But if you have pain and want to get back to doing yoga don’t go to Adriana go to IRM 👊🏼

27/11/2020

Eccentric Exercises and Injury Prevention/Performance Benefits

Afternoon Guys & Gals,

🔥 It’s research paper review of the week 🔥

This hopefully will become a regular post, where I pick a paper I’ve read in the week that I find has significance in your training + challenge some of your beliefs.

📚 Jeam Marcel Geremia et al., (2019) Tricep Surae muscle architecture adaptations to eccentric training.

🔎BACKGROUND: Eccentric contractions are one of 3 contractions your muscles do, the other two are concentric and isometric.
Eccentric - contraction while the muscle lengthens
Concentric - contraction while the muscle shortens e.g. leg extensions
Isometric - contraction with no movement e.g. wall sits

A good example of an eccentric exercise is the Nordic Hamstring Curl- Check out this Home exercise version you can try! https://youtu.be/pJSxW9Vi4K8

👉🏼Over the last couple of years, eccentric and isometric contractions have been in the forefront for research
👉🏼In therapy it’s used for its injury prevention properties for muscle strains & other related muscle injuries
👉🏼It’s shown to change the make-up of the muscle, specifically, increase muscle fascicle length
👉🏼Increased fascicle length has a correlation with improved performance
&
has been seen to decrease as you get older in sedentary (non-athletic) populations, subsequently leading to injury later in life.

📕METHODS: This paper looked at whether using a eccentric training programme can change the architecture of the calf muscles (Gastrocnemius [G] & Soleus [S]).
They looked at Fascicle Length [FL] (a fascicle is a bundle of muscle fibres) and Muscle Thickness [MT].
It was a 12-week programme with a 4-week control period beforehand. 20 students were included in this study.

📈RESULTS: FL & MT increased for both the G and S after 8 weeks of eccentric training. S showed the greatest increase in FL.

👎🏼LIMITATIONS: Small sample size, No women and only students were involved.

🧠 CONCLUSION: The eccentric training on the calf musculature may cause changes in the architecture over 4-8week training period. These adaptations may have practical implications for injury prevention & rehab.

Eccentrics in my view have a place in your training programmes and are a really good way of developing strength over the entirety of the muscles your working. It’s important to think about different ways in order to stress/challenge your body so give it go and trust me, you feel it after 💪🏼

& remember FORM/TECHNIQUE is 🔑 and lifting heavy weights is over-rated