Tendinopathy – or How I understand Jill Cooks podcast

Professor Jill Cook is a physiotherapist, a clinician and a scientist, she is deputy editor of the British Journal of Sports Medicine and is, quite frankly, a legend. This is my take, and a simplification for the time starved on the British Medical Journal podcasts delivered by Jill Cook – you can listen to the originals by following these links part 1 and part 2. Lets break it down from the beginning… What are tendons? Connective tissue made from Collagen that attaches muscles (contracting tissue) to bones (levers). they don’t just connect, they store and release energy to provide efficient movement. What is a tendinopathy? … Continue reading

Have you gone mental yet? 

This is the question that has been asked of me (Tim) a week after getting achillies tendonitis following a couple of back-to-back long runs, loaded with a rucksack. The implication being that if I don’t run then I’m basically going to go out of my head. Interesting. And to be fair, something that a lot of runners seem to think will happen, it’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy. You get injured, you announce to the world you can’t run, and wonder how long you’re going to cope before you drive yourself crazy because you can’t run. How odd. It’s been a week … Continue reading

Compliance: Physiotherapy

As a physiotherapist I see my job as getting people who are injured back to fitness, getting those who are in pain, back to normality, or as close as possible. The main way in which we do this is through physical interventions. Or, in more common place language – exercise. It is no secret that when we as humans learn to do something, practice makes perfect. If you tried to learn the 6 times table by doing it once, you probably wouldn’t remember it. Equally, if you try to throw a javelin once, you probably wouldn’t be as good at … Continue reading

Coping with Injury

Perhaps this is a good time to talk about injuries and coping with them, and maybe, how not to re-injure yourself through coming back too quickly. The reason for this is because I recently had my first DNF in a fell race, through an impact injury with a rock. A few days later, my knee was still pretty swollen, I couldn’t bend it so well… In fact I could barely walk up stairs. It was going to be a good couple of weeks, if not more, before I could actually get out to run, cycle, or even get on the rowing machine. … Continue reading

Psychology of Sports Massage

The benefits of sports massage that are published are very often limited to the physiological aspects, and with good reason, because it’s easier to quantify them (e.g. measuring circulation or chemical levels in blood). However, the psychological benefits are naturally more qualitative, and being unmeasurable they are therefore difficult to explain in a scientific way. However, the field of sports psychology is not insignificant, and as such we should not shy away from the emotional and mental benefits, just because we can’t speak from an evidenced position. As it is difficult to speak from a research based position, clinical expertise … Continue reading

E is for Epicondylitis

Introduction Epicondylitis is an overuse injury of the elbow. When the lateral (outside) structures are affected the condition is more commonly known as Tennis Elbow (or lateral epicondylitis) and when medial (inside) structures are affected it is known as Golfer’s Elbow (no prizes for guessing this is medial epicondylitis). What is Epicondylitis and why does it happen? The main difference between medial and lateral epicondylitis is which specific structures around the elbow suffer from overuse, injury or irritation. Lateral – the main area of concern are the extensors muscles of the hand which attach to the lateral epicondyle (a bony … Continue reading