Tag Archives: physiotherapy

Manual Therapy Sucks?

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Manual Therapy Sucks. Manual Therapy does nothing for the patient. Manual Therapy is absolutely useless and shouldnt be used in a therapeutic context. How often have we as physiotherapists heard this kind of thing trotted out in the past few years? Yes, it makes a great twitter line, a good slogan on a t-shirt and a superb way of making people jump up and down and get riled up. I suppose I’m here to say: Manual therapy is not without benefit. Someone wants comforting- what do we do? Immediately we are drawn to comfort them with spoken word, but also … Continue reading →

The BioPsychoSocial Model is Descartian…

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I’ve had a problem with the Biopsychosocial (BPS) model for a while, and I didn’t quite know what it was. For those unfamiliar with this model, in a nutshell, the idea is that we look at each patient not simply as a biological problem- a hurty leg, for example- but rather in the context of their psychological and social situation as well. We know that there has been a fairly traditional issue in that a lot of therapists tend to focus on the bio much more than the other sides of the coin- as it were. For the visual people … Continue reading →

3×10 is not necessarily wrong…

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The amount of blog inches that have been written about this in recent times is fairly astounding. There are any amount of opinions about sets and reps and why certain things are prescribed. The sound of a physio giving someone a couple of exercises and saying, “off you go, and make sure you do 3 lots of 10 repetitions each day” has pretty much passed into medicalised jargon. It is such a common prescription that even patients are now saying- oh, should I do 3 lots of 10 of these then? There has been some push back on this, mainly … Continue reading →

Stop telling people to stop running

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How many times have you, as a runner, been told that you have an injury and can’t run- so maybe you should go and do some swimming instead. Or yoga? How many times have you as a Therapist told a runner to do this? As a tip to the Therapists. Please don’t. It is one of the most frustrating things to hear as a runner and pretty much the worst thing you can do (in their eyes) as a Therapist. Just because someone runs as a hobby, it does not mean that they can swim – or that they enjoy … Continue reading →

Is sponsorship detrimental to athletes health?

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I’ll begin with a quote from a podcast I’ve just finished listening to: “Lets get a brand to put money behind the health of the athletes instead of behind the medals”. – that was a comment on a blog about RED-S by Trent Stellingwerff – (it was the Science of Sport podcast, if you’re interested). I don’t disagree with this sentiment, in fact I wholeheartedly encourage it, but I do see a couple of problems with it. In the world of elite sport, it would seem that one thing matters to sponsors. Medals. Medals bring fame, occasionally notoriety, but above … Continue reading →

Myth 3 – There is a perfect posture/leg length

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Have you ever been told that your running/cycling/backpain etc is a result of leg length differences? Interesting. Have you ever met ANYONE with exactly the same length of legs? No? Quite. We are NOT symmetrical. In fact, if you can find me a person who is exactly symmetrical I’d love to meet them. The rest of us have to make do – and there are many many people out there with various leg length differences etc. who are running/cycling etc quite painlessly. No symptoms. Nothing. Does this mean that leg length is totally unhelpful in diagnosing problems? Not quite. I … Continue reading →