Andrew Dalwood has once again been sharing his wealth of knowledge with our friends in the media at Good Health. This time he has been offering a quick and easy tip for maintaining a better posture.

Why is posture important?

The body has a position that allows maximal efficiency. Part of this is attributed to the way that muscles function. If a muscle is really stretched out or jammed up it will have to work harder to get the job done.

If you work in an office, or even just around the home have a quick look at the people sitting near you. Would you consider them to be in a good postural position?

One common ‘postural mistake’ is to be sitting with your head forward. That forward head position puts all of the muscles around the back of your shoulders and neck on stretch and jams up the muscles at the front. With the human head weighing on average 8% of your body weight those muscles have to work a lot harder than they should. If your ears are positioned vertically above your shoulders the muscles just have to work on balancing your head, rather than holding it up. Over a whole day at work, school or just around the home this extra work really adds up.

In addition to the effect on muscles, poor posture will also place the joints in a bad position. Many joints around the body will ‘close’ at the end of their range. An example of this would be the elbow. If you go to straighten your elbow you get to a point where it just will not go any further. This is because of the bone of the forearm will be blocked by the bone of the arm. The shoulder can be similar. If you have your shoulders rolled forward the top of your arm bone can get jammed up with the bone that sits just above it. This will lead to discomfort and potentially will start to impact on how you can use your shoulders.

If you are concerned about your posture and are unsure of how you should position yourself follow Andrew’s tip seen in the picture, you could also get friend to take a photo of you sitting or standing to see exactly how you place yourself. If you are still worried or find it difficult to maintain this posture then make an appointment with a friendly physiotherapist at Waverley Park Physiotherapy Centre for some advice and exercises.

Our Summer edition of Physio for You is out now.

Get Active This Summer

As the warm weather hits, many of us have the same reaction. The reality of ditching the layers and revealing our bodies can be daunting. Don’t panic! There’s still time to get in shape, not just to look good, but to make the most of the warm weather and get active.

To read more, click here => Physio for You – Get Active This Summer to download your copy in PDF version.

The team at Waverley Park Physiotherapy Centre hope you have all had a fantastic Christmas.

We wish you all of the best for the New Year, may it bring you good times and good health.

We would also like to introduce our newest member – Rushabh Pattni. He will be starting on the 16^th of January. Rushabh joins us all the way from Newcastle, NSW, where he worked at a number of private practices helping those with work and sport related injuries, people with musculoskeletal injuries and running yoga classes.

Rushabh has recently completed his Musculoskeletal Masters of Physiotherapy at the University of Queensland. He has also completed a number of post graduate courses as part of his continuing education. Including courses covering headaches, neck pain, dry needling and spinal conditions.

Again we wish you all the best for the New Year. Don’t miss this opportunity to resolve any aches and pains or rehabilitate any injuries before the year gets underway. Athletes that play a winter sport (I’m looking at you footy stars!) now have the time to get their injuries sorted out before the season starts. Avoid struggling with a nagging injury the whole season by acting now.

Ever get told to do some exercises regularly but find yourself absorbed in your work and not getting the exercises done?

There may be a solution for you. This blog has a quick look at some useful ways of remembering to do you exercises.

The applicability of these solutions will be exercise dependent. Some exercises will not be able to be done in the same situations as others.  For example you can do many neck exercises while in a confined space (e.g. the car) where as you will not be able to stretch your hamstrings out.

What are the options?

At the computer

The following list of ‘gadgets’ will run on your windows PC see the brief descriptions to get an idea of what they can offer.

Take a break

This would have to be one of my favourite. It is a subtle little gadget that will sit on your desktop. It was designed to remind people to take a break for their eyes. However, if you add in a few exercises while resting your eyes I am sure the developers will not mind! It will play a sound at set intervals to remind you to take a break.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Windows-Widgets/System-Utilities/TakeABreak-Gadget.shtml

Workrave

This program is a little more detailed than the last two. It offers a few more functions and ways to change the settings. It will remind you to take a short break while typing/using the mouse. It also reminds you to take longer break to ensure you have time to do your exercises. The third reminder is an overall usage timer – it will after 4 hours (by default, but you can change it) remind you to stop using the computer, while the 4 hours may not be long enough if you work on a computer you can change the time frame or ignore the prompt entirely.

http://www.instantfundas.com/2009/05/workrave-helps-you-prevent-repetitive.html

Eyes relax

Of the same breed as the above two programs but with plenty of options and features. It offers two break reminding options (short breaks and long breaks) and it has a ParentMode that will lock the computer during the break (forcing a break to be had, rather than suggesting it).

http://themech.net/eyesrelax/

FadeTop

Similar to ‘Take a break’, however instead of playing a sound it will fade the desktop to a colour of your choice to remind you to do your exercises. You can play around with the timing and the duration of the fading and you can change the opacity of the fade, allowing you to keep working if you needed to. 

http://www.instantfundas.com/2011/06/fadetop-reminds-you-to-take-computer.html?dhiti=1

What about when I am not at a computer?

One of the best solutions is to think of an appropriate prompt. This prompt might be something you do, something you walk past, a certain place in your house etc. When this prompt ‘occurs’ you have to do your exercises.

Just some examples of prompts that might be useful:

• Sitting at a red light (or if on foot, waiting for the green pedestrian light)
• Walking down a specific hallway at work/home
• During the ad break when watching TV
• Waiting for the kettle to boil (toast to pop, fax to send, page to print, website to load, microwave to finish etc.)
• Every time you check Facebook (for some of the youngsters this may dramatically increase the number of times they do their exercises!)
• Pick an activity you do during the day where you can combine the exercises alongside.
  • While you are cleaning your teeth, brushing your hair you could
    • be stretching your calf muscles
    • Or, once you’ve made sure there is no water on the floor and you’ve got something solid to hold on, working on your single leg balance (only do this if recommended by your physiotherapist)

    At the end of the day it is your responsibility to make the exercises a priority. Your physiotherapist may seem ‘exercise’ happy at times, but more often than not, they are the best long-term solution for managing your ailment.

At the end of the day it is your responsibility to make the exercises a priority. Your physiotherapist may seem ‘exercise’ happy at times, but more often than not, they are the best long-term solution for managing your ailment.

If you have any great ideas for remembering to do exercises please leave them in a comment below. Or if you have a tricky situation where you find it diffucult to remember your exercises explain the situtation in the comment and we will help you out. 

Andrew Dalwood packed his bags and trekked up to Brisbane for the conference. Not only was he there to mingle with some of the great minds in the field he was also there to attend the specialisation graduation ceremony, as a graduate! It is a tremendous achievement to become a specialist physiotherapist.

Andrew put together a few words to describe undertaking the specialisation process.

Last week at the APA conference that I attended in Brisbane there was a graduation ceremony for the admission of Fellowes to the Australian College of Physiotherapy. This was the culmination of a journey for me of further study, late nights, examinations and lots of coffee. The journey started in December 2008 and the final examinations were performed in Brisbane November 2009. This was an exhaustive period combining work, study and family, but very rewarding in the end. The ceremony now nearly two years later brought back all the feelings of achievement and reflection of the greater knowledge gained and improvements in my clinical management of my patients. There are now some 130 physiotherapist in the College from all over Australia and it was very humbling to be in such great and inspiring company. The journey now two years on is striving for continued improvement in effective patient management of the complex cases and to make “that” difference in “their” lives. A huge thank you to all my family, staff and friends (Dave, Jayce, Rob, Jenny) for all the support and encouragement.

Congratulations Andrew!

If you would like to comment on Andrews achievements or the APA conference, please leave a post below.

With the recent trend of improving weather there will be the inevitable shift from the ‘rugged up in-doors’ winter mode to the ‘lets get back into shape’ for summer mode. An ever popular choice of exercise is running. There are many benefits to running; you don’t have to travel far, you don’t need to be super fit to get started, you can do it anytime of the day or night and there are not extensive equipment costs (although running shoes are not cheap!).

Recently our physiotherapist Chris Snell volunteered to take a brief session with the local Can Too running group as part of Waverley Park Physiotherapy’s ever growing effort to support our local community. Can Too are a non-for profit organisation that since starting up in April 2005 has trained over 6,000 people to swimming and running glory and raised over $7.4 million for Cure Cancer Australia. We thought given the likely increase in the number of your patients commencing an effort to get fit we would share a few key notes from Chris’ talk on acute injury management and injury prevention.

Please visit Can Too’s website by clicking HERE to discover more about them.

The talk discussed the importance of the initial management of an injury. You can find our initial management guide in PDF form in the sidebar to the left of your screen (might have to scroll a little for it). It covers the things you should be doing between sustaining the injury and seeing a health practitioner.

The talk also included some information about the four most common injuries seen in runners. In the PDF WPPC Common Runners Injuries 2011 you can see some information about these common conditions and how they might present.

The talk was focused on injury prevention. Using recent research to identify common factors between the top four injuries and the steps the athletes can take to reduce the risk of injury.

If you are interested in some good advice on injury prevention or think you might have already have an injury feel free to make an appointment with one of our physiotherapists. All of our physiotherapists are experienced with sporting injuries and a wide range of sports.

As explained above the review looks at the issues of safety in regards to children using weight to supplement their training regime. The question I ask is “Would you want your children (or young clients) undertaking resistance training as part of their performance enhancing or injury prevention programs?”

The first thing that I should clarify is what resistance training is all about, specifically in regards to children and adolescents. Resistance training is a method of physical conditioning that involves applying a resistive load to a selected group of muscles to make them work harder. The application of the load can be done with many different techniques and devices, this includes; free weights (barbells and dumbbells), elastic bands, medicine ball, weight machines and body weight (including plyometric exercises). With the children and adolescents I would only ever consider sub-maximal loads, as a safety precaution. Resistance training in children and adolescents should be regarded as separate from the competitive weight lifting sports (including power lifting and body building).

Historically, pre-1990, there has been a reluctance to incorporate resistance training with young athletes.  However, now there is an ever increasing tread to include resistance training into the training regimes of young athletes. I will be discussing the efficiency of resistance training in my next post. But this post will give you the risks side of the ‘risk vs benefit’ comparison.

The highs and lows of the risks are that there have been some very serious complications associated with resistance training. However, they have common contributing factors. The overall incident rate of injuries in resistance training is low. Compared with other sports resistance training will often have a lower rate of injury see table one.

The common contributing factors of the injuries were:

• Lack of qualified supervision
• Poor training technique

Both of these factors are easy to control. You need to ensure a qualified individual is taking the sessions. They should be able to ensure that;

• appropriate equipment is used,
• the athletes are using suitable weights and,
• the athletes technique is correct

It would be a great start for anyone interested in running a resistance program for children and adolescents to have a read of my full article and look up the recommendations by Faigenbaum and Myer (2010) and American Academy of Pediatrics (2008).

Please leave your thoughts, by posting either in the comment section here, or on The Sports Physiotherapist website.

Hamill, B. (1994). Relative Safety of Weightlifting and Weight Training. J. Strength Cond. Res. 8(1):53-57.

Faigenbaum, A. D., & Myer, G. D. (2010). Resistance training amoung young athletes: safety, efficacy and injury prevention effects. British Jounrnal of Sports Medicine, 44, 56-63.

Please find our Physio 4 You newsletter in the link below.

This newsletter has a look into headaches and overuse injuries. So if you are suffering from headaches, ongoing aches and pains or know someone else that does – Please take the time to have a read through this newsletter.

Physio for You July 2011 <<< Click here

If you have an injury, don’t let it drag on, early assessment and treatment is very important for speedy recovery!

Our clinic has had the opportunity to be a part of this trial with Andrew Dalwood being one of the treating therapists. We are pleased to announce that the trial has now reached the half-way mark with sixty-four people passing the screening process and becoming participants. Forty-seven of those participants have finished all of their physiotherapy visits and the second assessment at the university. With promising results being seen so far!

While everyone involved in the trial are very pleased to have hit the halfway mark, there is still the need for another sixty-four participants.

Eligible participants in the trial will receive physiotherapy treatment no cost.

To ensure the trial will provide useful evidence that will help direct treatment of people with hip osteoarthritis there are specific criteria for participants involved in this trial.

To take part in the trial you must:

• be aged 50 years or over
• have had hip pain on most days in the past month
• not have had a hip joint replacement

If you fit the above criteria, live in Melbourne’s metropolitan area and would like to find out further details please contact Joel Martin on 8344 0426.

Or visit their website:

http://www.physioth.unimelb.edu.au/chesm/volunteer.html

A muscle (or even a few fibres of a muscle) that involuntarily (without consciously willing it) contracts is in a “spasm.” If the spasm is forceful and sustained, it becomes a cramp. Think of it on a spectrum where a few fibres involuntarily contracting is a light spasm this can progress all the way to the entire muscle (± surrounding muscles) is sustaining an involuntarily contraction. In the sporting arena cramps are most commonly seen in the calf and hamstring muscles.

Muscle cramps can last anywhere from a few seconds to a quarter of an hour or occasionally longer. It is not uncommon for a cramp to recur multiple times until it finally goes away. The cramp may involve a part of a muscle, the entire muscle, or several muscles that usually act together.

There are a huge range of cramp types (and their associated causes). Some of the types not covered in this blog include: