Running is supposed to be an enjoyable hobby, yet running causes many people discomfort or problems. Few runners won’t have had some sort of ankle injury. From ankle sprains to achilles tendinopathies there are quite a number of tissues you can injure around the ankle. Therefore we aim to make our rehab programs in such a way that you aren’t simply out of pain but truly fit to run again. It is the goal of rehab to ensure that you can engage in thoughtless, fearless movement. To make sure that everything you do enjoyable and pain-free. Continue reading “Ankle injury rehab – walking with intent”
How,when and why to add hill sprints
Talk of hill sprints can bring a bring a wave of nausea over even experienced runners. This is even worse for the novice runner but used appropriately they are a fantastic tool. Hill sprints can help develop your running technique as well as the obvious conditioning benefits. So how do you add them to your repertoire to get the most out of them?
My glutes aren’t firing?
“My glutes aren’t firing” is something that I hear all too often. What makes you think that your glutes aren’t firing? How did you come to this conclusion? Did a therapist or trainer tell you? Did you read it on the internet that sitting at a desk all day will mean your glutes aren’t firing? It is then associated as the cause of a number of probl
ems from back pain to illiotibial band syndrome.
Lower limb injury assessment
The first step in any injury assessment is what previous injuries do you have. The biggest predictor of future injury lies in your injury history. As a result looking into your injury history will play an important roll in deciding on what needs to be done. If you have previously injured your ankle, knee or hip these are areas we need to investigate in the injury assessment. We do this becasue of the scale of the impact they have on the way you move. Two of the more important things that we are looking out for in the clinic are asymmetries and pain.When we are assessing movement we are looking to see both how good it is and does it cause pain. Continue reading “Lower limb injury assessment”
I keep spraining my ankle, it must be weak
This isn’t an uncommon thing to hear from anyone unfortunate enough to suffer regular ankle injuries. The likely hood that you have weak ankles is very low even if you are spraining one or both of them regularly. The cause of the problem is more likely one of poor communication between the brain and the muscles surrounding your ankle which results in a loss of what we call proprioception. Continue reading “I keep spraining my ankle, it must be weak”
How to manage runners knee
Runners’ Knee is a common complaint with runners. 10% of runner’s will experience some sort of knee pain in any given year. Given it’s so common what causes it and what can you do about it?
Generally most injuries runner pick up are of a “repetitive strain” nature and runner’s knee is no exception. Given the nature of running, this isn’t really that big a surprise. There aren’t really many demands in terms of changing direction or speed. It is very much about simply putting one foot in front of the other. Continue reading “How to manage runners knee”
Tight Hamstrings? Have you been told to keep stretching?
Are you constantly battling with tight hamstrings? Been told to stretch them but it doesn’t seem to help? It’s something I see all the time where they come into the clinic complaining of tight hamstrings and I get the same story, that they are stretching regularly but it doesn’t make any difference. Continue reading “Tight Hamstrings? Have you been told to keep stretching?”
Achilles tendinopathy – what can you do to keep running
Achilles tendinopathy is one of the more common running injuries and I mentioned it previously in post TOP 5 RUNNING INJURIES. As I mentioned there it is pretty much an overuse injury that can be avoided, for the most part though not always, by good programming. If you gradually increase your training load it is possible to avoid overuse injuries as you are training within your capacity to recover before the next training session. In doing this once you get to the tough part of the program the hard training in itself has a protective mechanism, as described by Tim Gabbett here.
Continue reading “Achilles tendinopathy – what can you do to keep running”
Knee pain – between a rock and a hard place.
Many of us have experienced knee pain at some point in time but it usually doesn’t last long and clears up on it’s own. For those for whom it doesn’t clear up you can be left with an irritating, and sometimes disabling, pain. Continue reading “Knee pain – between a rock and a hard place.”
Anterior Knee Pain
Patellofemoral pain can be thought of where pain is present in and surrounding the tissues between the patella and the femur. The cause of the pain can be something of a mystery as it rarely develops quickly and isn’t the result of a traumatic incident the way a ligament tear is. The symptoms are often made worse by, though not exclusively, activities like squatting, lunging, kneeling, going down stairs or running downhill. In-other words relatively high load activities that put a lot of stress on or through the area. in addition to this sitting for long periods where the knee is flexed can also cause the symptoms to get worse.