Category Archives: physiotherapy

D is for Dry Needling

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I’ve had a mild fascination with Dry Needling since I graduated as a Sports and Remedial massage therapist a few years ago. Actually, it goes back further than that, perhaps right back to my first massage treatment in Japan. It has taken me a while to actually get around to doing a course to qualify, but it has finally come to pass. This is intended as a very very basic introduction to the idea of Dry Needling as a therapy, and is in no way comprehensive. That would take far longer, and a lot more text than most people are … Continue reading →

Foam Roller Workshop

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I’m a big fan of foam rollering. Sometimes called “poor mans massage” it is the mechanical manipulation of muscle… pretty much what I do on a day-to-day basis, just with a bit less precision. Not as precise, maybe, but it does target tissues that need work on them, which would otherwise not get sorted until you went to see a therapist. I have been extolling the virtues of foam rollers to various people in my running club – Glossopdale Harriers – for the past few months, and thought it was about time to spread the message, and, more importantly, the … Continue reading →

Massage for vocalists

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Vocals. They are our natural instrument with which we can interact with the world. Some of us do that in delightful ways, entertaining us with singing or acting, and others still inspire us with lectures and teachings about the world we live in. We all communicate with our voice, and the creative ones amongst us use their voice as their instrument. But why is massage therapy important if you use your voice to earn your living or entertain people? Just as a dancer or athlete seeks out regular maintenance massage, a vocal artist should also consider this as a tool to … Continue reading →

Lymphatic Drainage

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Lymphatic Drainage. We’ve all heard the term. I used to think it was some kind of painful way of getting rid of something that I didn’t want to know what was in my body. Probably from somewhere I didn’t necessarily want it drained from. It turns out I was very wrong. I also noticed that if I stayed still for a long time and didn’t exercise for a few days, I began to feel stuffy and stagnant, less able to move, and a bit “off”. But this feeling went away after getting out there and doing something. Endorphins, or something … Continue reading →

Diaphragmatic pain- treatment and prevention

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As the diaphramatic pain blog got a fair amount of interest in terms of people looking at it, I re-read it and obviously there is a lot of information about what is happening and why things are hurting, but not so much about how to stop it happening or how to treat the pain. As alluded to by one of the comments I have been in touch with a couple of people and suggested some stretches, which seems to have stopped the symptoms. I basically sat down and worked out some things which would stretch out the tissues mentioned. The … Continue reading →

Diaphragmatic pain while running

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I have mentioned pain in my diaphragm when running in a couple of blogs recently. I used to get it a bit when I was starting out, it put me off running for a while, and then I went back and hoped it wouldn’t hurt. Sometimes it would, sometimes it wouldn’t. I never really knew what it was, and didn’t think about it until recently when I started to get the same pain in races, stretching out on down hills, or just running on the flat. Funnily enough, it never really happened when I was running uphill. So I went … Continue reading →