Category Archives: physiotherapy

How does my physio know what is wrong with me?

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X-ray eyes? MRI scanners in his fingers? Intuition? Black magic? It was suggested the other day that I write a quick post on how a physio knows what is wrong with you, and how they decide on what the appropriate treatment is. Obviously this is going to differ from physio to physio when it gets down to the nitty-gritty, but by and large there are a couple of big headings under which our assessments tend to fall. Red flags The first thing a physio should be doing when you walk into the treatment is to assess for things called Red … Continue reading →

Muscle VS Fat

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Why do we get hung up on the number on the scales? Is it actually important? It is so easy to fixate on weight (and how much we’d like to lose) when the real issue is how much body fat we are carrying around. Are you confusing weight loss with fat loss? Which do you want to achieve? We’ve grown up using the bathroom scales as a measure of healthiness. It is hard to shift the habit of using such an easy and quantifiable number as a level of fitness, well being and, to a point, personal happiness. But this … Continue reading →

Hip Rehab – the next instalment

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Physio, rehab is not a single upward trajectory The story of my sore hip continues. People must be getting bored of hearing about this, so I won’t go into masses of detail, however, for the past few weeks, things have been going well. Three 5k runs on consecutive days got done in the middle of last week. I managed a VO2 max test the week before. This weekend, in fact yesterday, I went out and did 20k in 2:30 over some fairly rough ground. Today I hurt. It isn’t as bad as it has been, but my right adductors and Sacroiliac joint … Continue reading →

Hip rehab – what have I ended up doing?

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As you may or may not know from previous blogs, I’ve been having a bit of a problem with my right hip. The Sacroiliac joint, and the adductors, to be exact. It took me out of running for about 8-10 weeks. I’m slowly getting back to running, as was detailed by my last blog, but the most common response (apart from aren’t you going mad?) has been “so what are you doing to get you back to running”? I thought I would address that here. Looking back on my diary for the last few weeks and months have shown an … Continue reading →

Physician- Heal Thyself – a fairly long one – I must apologise.

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There is a lot of information out there about Janda’s “Lower Cross Syndrome” – It is characterised by anterior hip tilt and an increased lumbar lordosis. According to what you read, this may – or indeed, may not lead to lower back pain or other musculoskeletal problems. The fact that this syndrome led to pain was a fairly well accepted theory for many years and a lot of physiotherapy was focused on remedying this anterior hip tilt through the stretching of “tight” hip flexors and strengthening of the “weak” or “loose” core and somewhat amnesiac glutes. (How, exactly do glutes … Continue reading →

Race vs Recovery: Being intelligent about injury and racing

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If you’ve read any of the recent blogs about hip injuries and races you’ll know that I’ve been building up to a bit of a race for the past year – The TDS, but have also picked up a considerable hip injury. Despite my best efforts, and telling everyone that if they’re going to get injured, do it in a race, not in practice, that is exactly what I did. The process of getting back to proper running has taken a while, and although I have run a couple of times in the last week, it has been nothing really … Continue reading →