Category: Back Pain (Page 2 of 2)

The 1# Cheat To Improve Your Squat

2nd November 2017 / Robert Manning

Wouldn't you love to buy a bit of kit that would help you improve your squat ten fold?

Sounds too good to be true doesn't it?

Well.... this cheat is lifting shoes!

How Do They Work?

Lifting shoes angle your foot so it is resting in a slight bit of plantarflexion (i.e movement of pushing your accelerator to the floor)

It does this by having a slight heel of around 2 to 2.5cm.

This slight heel increases plantarflexion by 3.5 degrees to 5 degrees, this then makes it feel like your dorsiflexion has increased. However it is more of an illusion as instead of your foot starting of flat it starts of slightly plantarflexed

Conclusion

So if you are too lazy too follow my previous blog posts on fixing your squat this is a perfect cheat to help you squat a lot better by just changing your shoes!

If you aren't happy 'cheating' and want to improve your squat without relying on some magic shoes book in with me today to help you get on track and fully fit... see below for one of the many clients I have helped

L. Brymner

Recreational Gym User

I had suffered a bad strain from the gym in my upper back trap area and was very immobile and causing me tension headaches. Rob managed to source the problem and relieve some of the soreness and get me on the road to recovery my back and neck were back too 100% within a couple of days and I was back in the gym, could not recommend rob more if you've got any pains or long lasting injuries I'd highly suggest you see Rob! Lewis

For more information on squatting shoes give the below a read!

Sato, K., Fortenbaugh, D., & Hydock, D. S. (2012). Kinematic changes using weightlifting shoes on barbell back squat. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 26(1), 28-33.

Three reasons to get a Massage

3rd September 2017 / Robert Manning

Massage, as if you needed an excuse to get one, below are the top 3 reasons you should get one today!

It helps maintain your body. For example think of your body as your car, you’d fill it with petrol, wash it, hoover it, service it regularly.

A regular massage is the equivalent of getting a service and a valet to keep you on track to stop you getting a seriously injured down the road.

Massage helps relieve low to moderate intensity pain and helps contribute to a positive feeling of well being and also to positive psycho-emotional response.

Therfore if you're feeling stressed and snowed under, massage is the perfect choice for having an hour to yourself relaxing in your own home!

Massage can reduce the effects of sitting for long periods of time in jobs such as office work or long hours behind the wheel or even both!

An hour massage once every 4 to 6 weeks can help reduce all the build up of muscular tension that you get from sitting from anywhere between 6 to 10+ hours a day!

Conclusion

Think of it this way: What’s an hour out of your month? Going on an average 30 day month that’s 730 hours, so you’ve still got 729 hours left to do whatever you please….. Click below to book in today

Click Below To Book In Today!

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Why Fitbits could be bad for you!

21st May 2017 / Robert Manning

steps

1001 steps, 1002 steps, 1003 steps…. Does this sound like you and your fitness tracker?

Counting up your steps till you reach your magic number of 5k, 10k or more steps in a day

Well studies have found over the past few years it makes us feel unhappier as our fitness trackers turn going for a walk, run or a bike ride etc into a chore.

Don’t get me wrong people who use fitness trackers have been found to walk and run further however they were also found to hate it much more than people who were measured who didn’t use trackers.

At the end of the day, fitness and sport should be fun so get out there and enjoy it!

Below is one of the studies from Duke university business school in America relating to Fitbits and chores

http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/news_events/news-releases/jordan-etkin-tracking/#.WSGERsYjXIV

Remember to sign up for email updates for £5 off and free tips on keeping fully fit!

Part 2- Your Biggest Issue Stopping Your Body From Healing!

7th April 2017 / Robert Manning

Continuing from last week’s post- something else that links in well with stress and can exacerbate the symptoms that stress has on the healing of wounds is a person’s diet, sleep and whether or not they smoke or drink.

Sleep

Mild moving through to severe sleep disruption is relatively common when someone is stressed.

This sleep disruption on its own without stress has been found to increase wound healing time.

sleep

Diet

Diet can also slow down wound healing time as if you are low on sugar, polyunsaturated fatty acids and protein this can reduce the body’s ability to heal itself as it doesn’t have the right materials.

burger

Alcohol

Bar

Alcohol consumption holds back wound healing as it disrupts your cardiac and immune function, by reducing the amount of collagen that can be layed at a time.

Smoking

smoking

Smoking also doesn’t help at all due to all the toxins and nicotine which is inhaled during a puff.It delays healing due to decreasing the amount of oxygen available to the injured area and it also slows down the speed at which the body’s immune system works.

Remember I offer Sport Massage, Swedish Massage and injury treatment in Newent, Gloucester, Cheltenham, the Forest of Dean and surrounding areas.

Your Biggest Issue Stopping Your Body From Healing!

31st March 2017 / Robert Manning

Our busy and hectic lives

Stress!!

As we all know, stress isn’t great and everyone in the world goes through it at varying points throughout their lives.

Stress can be anything from a GCSE exam through to trying to find a job or just trying to work out where you are going with your life.

Stress can have varying impacts on your body and not least when you are trying to recover from an injury.

Multiple studies have been conducted over the years and have found that stress from various elements can dramatically slow the healing process.

For example carers who were stressed caring for dementia patients were found to take 24% longer (9days!) to heal from a biopsy.

Moving onto exams, dental students also had a biopsy taken, the students who had the biopsy taken during exams took 40% longer to heal than the students who had the same biopsy taken during holiday time.

Lastly in older men and women, when they were stressed, anxious or depressed this caused a longer healing time than the ones who weren’t the above healed at a much quick rate.

Tips to help stress – taken from the NHS website on stress- Link below

1. Look for the positives in life- be grateful for what you have and not you don’t (glass half full)

2. Accept you’ll always have jobs to do, prioritise your work load from most important to least.

3. Have a bit of me time, this is where you take time out just to do something for you, be that a hobby of yours through to a relaxing massage.

These are just a few examples to help reduce stress!

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/Pages/reduce-stress.aspx

Christian, L. M., Graham, J. E., Padgett, D. A., Glaser, R., & Kiecolt-Glaser, J. K. (2007). Stress and wound healing. Neuroimmunomodulation, 13(5-6), 337-346.

The number 1 exercise if you work in an office!

17th March 2017 / Robert Manning

If you work in an office, you spend anything from 6 hours a day through to 10 or more at a desk… being at your desk for such a long period can mean that you sit with the below posture:

Bad posture

Slumped forward, shoulders rounded, look familiar? I’m sure it does, you may even be reading this in the exact same posture!

The number 1 exercise to help this is below- this is stretching you pectoralis minor muscle and this can get very tight when you have the above posture.

Pec minor anatomy

Pec minor stretch

1. put your arm on a door frame or corner of a wall at head height

2. lunge forward until you feel s stretch (the higher up you have your arm the deeper the stretch) Hold this for 30 seconds and repeat 3 times!

This is just the start of helping adjust yourself to an optimum posture. With my sessions we can go through a step by step plan of getting you to the perfect posture at work…Remember only 2 weeks left to get 50% off a sport massage initial assessment or an injury assessment with me. This means only £22.50 for and hour and a half session! 50% off for March

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50% off initial assessment for March- Massage and Injury

28th February 2017 / Robert Manning

Grab yourself a bargain this month, as for the whole of March I am halving my initial assessment price from £45 for an hour and a half to just £22.50.

You might just want a relaxing massage, or you may need help with an injury. Whatever your needs I can tailor the session around you!

Sport Massage Sport Therapy

Misleading MRI’s!

9th February 2017 / Robert Manning

What Does an MRI scan of your back say about you?

20th November 2015 / Robert Manning

Most people these days have heard of an MRI scan or even had one done. They can be a useful tool for physicians to pick up an array of conditions and diseases.

One of the things you can get a scan for is of your back. This is what many people ask for relatively early on if not straight away when they get any sort of back pain.

Now a scan is very good at picking up abnormalities in the spine from bulges, protrusions and extrusions.

Now patient x has had lower back pain for a while and finally thinks they should go and have an MRI scan to see whats going on.

So patient x goes for a scan on their back and it turns out they have a bulging disc!

Patient x then has the operation to fix it…. Shock horror!!, their back pain pain is still there! How could this be you ask? The MRI scan showed a bulging disk which was obviously causing patient x’s pain. They then went and had the operation to fix it!

What happened with our hypothetical subject?

Well studies on MRI scans of the back have been going on since the 80’s. It was in the early 90’s a famous study by Maureen C. Jensen, Michael N. Brant-Zawadzki, Nancy Obuchowski, Michael T. Modic, Dennis Malkasian, and Jeffrey S. Ross.

They looked at 98 asymptomatic people (Completely healthy) and got them all to have an MRI scan of their lower back
A massive 52% had a bulge at one level, 27% had a protusion and 38% had an abnormality at more than one level. The authors concluded that protrusions or bulges in people with lower back pain may frequently be coincidental.

Another study, this time of the cervical spine ( top third of your spine) in 2012. A Massive 1211 people were recruited from their 20’s right through to their 70’s, both males and females. The authors came to the same conclusion as 1994 that there is a relatively high prevalence of abnormal MRI findings in symptom free people.

A complete review of spinal degeneration in symptom free populations took place earlier this year and reached the same conclusion that image-based degenerative features are very likely down to aging and are in face unassociated with pain.

It is potentially massive the number of people over the years have gone on and had operations needlessly off the back of having MRI scans.

It can even add an awful amount of stress as it causes unnessassery worry all because people aren’t told that these changes/abnormal findings are a perfectly natural sign of aging much like getting grey hairs and wrinkles.

Brinjikji, W., Luetmer, P. H., Comstock, B., Bresnahan, B. W., Chen, L. E., Deyo, R. A., … & Jarvik, J. G. (2015). Systematic literature review of imaging features of spinal degeneration in asymptomatic populations. American Journal of Neuroradiology, 36(4), 811-816.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25430861

Jensen, M. C., Brant-Zawadzki, M. N., Obuchowski, N., Modic, M. T., Malkasian, D., & Ross, J. S. (1994). Magnetic resonance imaging of the lumbar spine in people without back pain. New England Journal of Medicine, 331(2), 69-73.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199407143310201#Top

Kato, F., Yukawa, Y., Suda, K., Yamagata, M., & Ueta, T. (2012). Normal morphology, age-related changes and abnormal findings of the cervical spine. Part II: Magnetic resonance imaging of over 1,200 asymptomatic subjects. European Spine Journal, 21(8), 1499-1507.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00586-012-2176-4#/page-1
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