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Foam Rolling – how to get the most out of it.

Foam rolling went through a phase a few years ago where it seemed to be essential in any warm up. It has now fallen out of favour and isn’t seen as essential to a warm-up anymore. Foam rolling was never essential to any warm-up but I still think there can be a use for it.

I find it useful when used at home if feeling stiff/sore and it makes it easier to ease into larger ranges of movement. My preference is still not to do any foam rolling in a warm-up. This is based primarily because there often isn’t a foam roller about or there isn’t the room.

foam rolling Continue reading “Foam Rolling – how to get the most out of it.”

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What can you do about sciatica?

When the sciatic nerve becomes irritated it can create pain, pins and needles or numbness down the back of the leg.

Nerves can be compressed, trapped or irritated in a number of ways at the point where it leaves the spine but there is quite a bit of space around the nerve at this point so the chances of it getting pinched here are low. If it does happen the most common of way is where a disc herniates and pushes against the nerve. Whilst this is the most common way for the nerve to become “trapped” it is still only likely to affect 1 in 10 of those suffering from back pain. Continue reading “What can you do about sciatica?”

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Revisiting the spinal flexion debate: prepare for doubt by Greg Lehman

This is great piece by Gregory Lehman and though a long one well worth reading it all. He looks at the pros and cons of maintaining a neutral spine and allowing spinal flexion to occur. Needless to say the case isn’t clear cut and it depends on your goals, tasks you require to do amongst other factors.

 

http://www.greglehman.ca/2016/01/31/revisiting-the-spinal-flexion-debate-prepare-for-doubt/

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Control ain’t the goal

When we injure ourselves we will see a reduction in our movement capacity in the area until things are back to normal. Hopefully with good rehab this will be a short period of restricted movement as we rebuild the capacity of the injured area to move. During the initial period we do see more control over the area as we do not want to re-injure it but long term this isn’t a valid option, what we require is more movement or a greater capacity/range of movement that we can move through without injuring ourselves. We need to practice as rich and varied range of movement as we can in order to fully recover from injuries and aid in helping avoid them in the future. Yes we require stability but we also need movement a graded approach to this can help ensure that we overcome the fear of movement and allow us to build our movement capacity. Our DMS rehab and the Dynamic Movement Skills work itself are both great tools to help with this.

This article by Joanne Elphinston is a nice read covering the subject.

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Injury prevention and management

This is a good article, with lots of references so you can do some further reading if you wish, on Injury prevention and management.

Two take away points were;
In summary

· SS(static stretching) does not appear to reduce injury risk and any effect on earlier return to sport is of marginal clinical significance.

· In contrast, a graduated strength training program appears to significantly reduce injury risk and significantly reduce the time to return to sport after injury.

Injury prevention and management among athletic populations

 

 

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The week in review

Here are a few bits and pieces from what I’ve been reading this week.

Ben Cormack at Cor-Kinetic makes some great points regarding joint mobility and our ability to express range of movement in a joint. It has become almost a must do before you do any kind of workout and yet aggressively going after increased range of movement pre workout may not aid your performance and may, in fact, actually hinder it or at least be a waste of time as you don’t need the extra ROM or have no control over it so your brain won’t allow you to access it. Here is Ben’s article.

This one from Running Times looks at different strategies for recovery. Whilst it is aimed at runners the principles apply to all sports with the bottom line being that unless you are getting enough sleep and eating enough quality food no amount of ice baths, compression gear, or creatine will make any difference.

Richmond Stace talks about Andy Murray’s cramps and what might actually cause them and it’s not dehydration or salt deficiency.

 

 

 

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More moving in the morning

A few weeks ago I mentioned Ryan DeBell at The Movement Fix putting together a simple set of movements/exercises to help you prepare for the day ahead. Taking nothing away from the ideas that Ryan put on the video but perhaps building on  them we can, in some ways, simplify things further. Rather than looking at a set of different movement drills we can look at the simple act of getting up and down off the floor and the different aspects of it. As it provides a rich variety of movements getting up off the floor, and back down, provides great stimulation to the brain and how it is involved in helping us move well. Continue reading “More moving in the morning”