Why Do We See More Injuries and Pain During Lockdowns?

While pain and injury aren’t the same thing, most of us are at increased risk of both at the moment during this lockdown. Here’s why…Injuries occur when you push your body beyond its physical limit. But humans are very resilient, so we often don’t see injury just from pushing to a physical limit. Research into risk factors behind stress fractures found that a change in physical load didn’t correlate to increased injury risk, neither did a change in stress levels nor did a change in sleep quality. However, when two of these three factors changed, the risk of bone injury increased significantly. This is something we see carry across most injuries, and it makes a lot of sense. If you change your physical behaviours, your body has the capacity to absorb that, but if you haven’t been sleeping and recovering well, then it is more difficult for your body to deal with a change in physical demand at the same time, so injury is more likely. Similarly, if your body is under constant stress you don’t recover as well from physical tasks, and so you may need more recovery time before you exert yourself again.

Most of us are under a fair amount of stress at the moment, whether it’s financial stress due to loss of work hours, health concerns, or feeling the weight of social isolation. Combine that with a change in physical routine with working from home, and being unable to participate in normal exercise and that’s two out of three big risk factors for an injury. Pain is a normal response when your body senses a danger or threat, and is often present in the absence of physical injury. Your body can sense danger in a number of ways, physically, socially, or psychologically. Each of these factors contributes to how threatened your body will feel, therefore how likely you are to experience pain. If you are under psychological stress, social isolation, and have changed your physical behaviours, there is a significant increase in the likelihood your body will feel threatened, therefore a higher chance that you will experience pain.

This is almost a guarantee for most people at the moment. The presence of a global pandemic that threatens the physical, mental, and economic health of the community, the social isolation of working from home and lockdown, and the inability to access pools, gyms, and community sport mean that most of us tick all the boxes for an increased risk of being in pain.Don’t worry! There are things you can do… Find the things you need to calm your mind: exercise, meditate, cook, garden, read, journal, call a friend.
Vary your activity.
Prioritise sleep.
Listen to your body.

The theme for National Pain Week is connection, but it is such a challenging time to be connected. In line with the ways we can limit injury and pain risk:
-Connect with your thoughts, how are you doing?
-Connect with your body, relax your jaw, relax your shoulders, relax your abdominals, take a deep breath.
-Connect with your social network, call someone you miss.

If these things resonated with you please give us a call on 9365 0004 to see if we can help you out.

Don’t Underestimate the Power of Your Breath

It’s not every day that we take the time to consider the value of something so automatic. Something that inadvertently pervades every moment of our lives. Something we do over 25000 times a day. Something with which we can not go with out. Breath.

If I’ve treated you over the last 2 weeks, there is little doubt that I have talked your ear off about my latest read James Nestor’s Breath. He takes you through his personal journey of research and discovery in to the power of breath. He advocates for investing a little bit of time in to this often-overlooked yet pivotal element of our lives. When harnessed correctly, breathing can not only minimise autoimmune and respiratory diseases, but can massively maximise athletic performance. He warns that when done incorrectly, breathing can open a gateway toward a multitude of chronic physiological and psychological disease states. I was blown away reading about how poor breathing patterns likely plays a role in the maintenance and perhaps cause of certain conditions like high blood pressure, ADHD, cancer, depression, diabetes, scoliosis, periodontal disease and bad breath… just to name a few.  

Now, it’s possible you’re thinking, what on earth is she talking about? Breathing correctly or incorrectly? This is something I do with my eyes closed. I don’t think about it. My body knows what to do and obviously I’m getting air in and out, so what’s the big problem? And what do you mean breathing ‘correctly’? I’m sure this isn’t news to everyone but James Nestor would suggest that mouth breathing is the devil. Not only does mouth breathing result in at least 18% less oxygen absorption then nose breathing, and can cause the body to lose 40% more water, but mouth breathing actually changes our facial structures to the point where there is effectively functional airway ‘collapse’, there is less space and breathing inevitably becomes more difficult. Interestingly, it has been suggested that mouth breathing actually makes us ‘dumber’. A few Japanese studies demonstrated how mouth breathing negatively effects how oxygen can reach our prefrontal cortex, and they showed how ‘mouth-breathing rats’ took twice as long to crack a maze as their nasal-breathing counterparts.

Nasal breathing on the contrary can benefit our health to no end. For instance, nasal breathing stimulates the sinuses to release nitric oxide, a molecule that plays an essential role. Through an increase in circulation and oxygenation, immune function, weight, mood and sexual function can all be regulated! Beyond this, nasal breathing is directly linked to balancing and regulating our autonomic nervous system. Mouth breathing, and breathing high up in your chest serves to keep our sympathetic system in overdrive, that is, our flight, fight or freeze mode, which is far from ideal on a long term basis. I’m sure you’re all aware of that sneaky phenomenon whereby one minute our right nostril is flowing freely, and the next it cycles over to the left. This is how nasal breathing regulates us. Our right nostril supposedly connects with our sympathetic nervous system, pumping blood to areas of our brain which help with alertness, readiness and logical decisions. The left nostril on the other hand activates our parasympathetic system, the one we need for relaxation and restoration. This natural cycling between left and right is the bodies way of regulating us and ensuring our body is doing what it should at a certain time.

So it would be very easy for me to keep rehashing gems from this book – but I if you’ve got some spare time on your hands over the next 2 weeks I highly recommend the read!

But just before I sign off, I wanted to share with you a few take home tips to get you started working on your nasal breathing!

By far my favourite, and the one that has left me ridiculed by my husband and family is the technique of mouth taping at night. There is no intense masking tape involved, and it does not look like a scene out of Homeland. But rather, I use a tiny post stamp sized piece of soft cotton tape to gently keep my lips together over night. This makes sure that I am nasal breathing all night long. Not that I’m a snorer, but for those of you who may be sleeping next to a freight train at night, I highly recommend taping them up for a week or so, and then let me know what happens!

The other one which I found fascinating was the need for slow breathing. As Nestor puts it, we are over eaters and over breathers, with many of us taking almost 4x as many breaths per minute as necessary. Having scoured ancient texts and observing prayers across Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic, Taoist, African, Hawaiian and Native American cultures he found a commonality that seemingly transcends mere coincidence. Somehow cross culturally, many prayers developed requiring the same breathing pattern. For example, both a popular Buddhist mantra and the pattern of the rosary lasts approximately 5.5-6 breaths per minute. Coincedence? I doubt it. This cycle of 5.5 second inhales followed by 5.5 second exhales is the ideal breath. It syncs with our cardiovascular rhythms, increases blood flow to our brain, and improves our whole bodies efficiency. So give it a go, practice just 10 minutes a day and see how what you experience.

Thanks for reading my over enthusiastic ramble about breath! Hope you guys are staying safe through lock down!

Just a reminder that BIM is open and here to help you guys with whatever we can!
Gina Kezelman

Have You Tried BIMFIT Pilates?

BIMFIT Rehab Pilates classes are unique. If you’ve been to us for physio you know we like to do things differently, and our BIMFIT Rehab classes are no different. Here’s why:

IT’S ABOUT YOU!

You aren’t doing the same exercises as the person next to you. You’re doing the stuff you need, and they’re doing what they need. I often hear people telling me they were doing Pilates for their injury but it didn’t help. If you’re in a group class where everyone is doing the same thing, the class is not tailored to you. It’s not tailored for anyone. And if it’s in a big gym it’s probably not even designed by the instructor. In our classes you will only do what you need or want to do. This means you don’t have to modify anything, you don’t walk out feeling like you couldn’t do anything, and you can see progression by doing your favourite exercise every session!!

CAN I TAKE YOU WITH ME?

Our physios are asked this question every day. It’s amazing how much better your movement can feel with a bit of hands-on support to the right area. Imagine having that same hands on support while you do your rehab?! Well, that’s what we do. With class maximum at 4 people we can spend time giving hands-on support to help make those key exercises work better. This can be the difference between a key exercise feeling great, or being painful. Once your body has the right support and you repeat it several times in class, your brain will remember how to coordinate that and you’ll be able to replicate it at home. Magic!

WE HAVE MORE WEIGHTS THAN FOAM ROLLERS!

I’ve had lots of guys tell me, after falling in love with Pilates, that they thought Pilates was women stretching!!! To that I say, we have more weights than foam rollers. The biggest thing in most people’s recovery is strength. Pilates can be about stretching, Pilates can be about strength, Pilates can be about balance, coordination, speed, fun, or whatever you want it to be. We also have conventional strength equipment including a TRX, dumbbells, and kettlebells. Tell us what you want from your BIMFIT class and that’s what you’ll get. 

Why I Do Pilates As Well As HIIT, Weights, Yoga And Cardio

People often ask me ‘What is the best kind of exercise for me’? 

To be honest, while some exercise forms are better for some people than others, on the whole - too much of anything is not a great thing, and my answer is usually -‘ You need to mix it up” 

Those people who only do Yoga should do some strength and Cardio

Those people who only run should do some strength, Yoga or Pilates 

Those people who only do Pilates need to do some Cardio and Strength - especially for women who need to load their bones to prevent Osteoporosis.

Those people who only ride their bike/go to a spin class should definitely do some strength work for their posterior chain (think of the back line of your body), and some mobility in Pilates or Yoga to get them out of that forward posture that we spend so much time in from sitting. 

Variety is the answer here - we really need to be doing a combination of different exercise types to target different aspects of your body, and there needs to be some rest days as well. 

10 years ago, I thought Pilates was Boring - just women lying on the floor doing crunches, Yoga was only for hippies or stiff people who can’t touch their toes, and running always led to a sprained ankle. With time, I’ve learnt that I was actually totally wrong - Pilates isn’t boring, Yoga isn’t for hippies and if you deal with injuries and imbalances in your body properly (which I clearly hadn’t),  running doesn’t lead to a sprained ankle! 

We were designed to move; in all directions, symmetrically, asymmetrically, loading our arms as well as our legs, moving our spine in all directions, and jumping, running and everything else you can think of. Unfortunately, life now means that we often sit a lot and we don’t move our bodies with enough variation. If you look at children playing they do everything, they run, jump, skip, squat and get on the floor, hang from bars and trees, weight-bear through their arms… the list goes on. As adults we have stopped doing so many of these things - how often do you hang or weight-bear through your arms?

When you are looking at your movement and exercise program, think about Strength, Mobility and Stretching, Cardio, Bone Loading - with impact or weighted exercises, and also time to Rest and be Mindful. Have you got all of these aspects in your life? What could you change? You don’t need to do everything each week, but you need to make sure you’re not only doing the same thing week to week — If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it! It’s a cliche, but it’s totally true!! 

10 years later, I’ve learnt to practice what I preach. Now my weekly movement vary from week to week, but it includes 5 sessions of; 

1-2 HIIT/Strength sessions where I build muscle, get my heart rate up, load my bones and do some impact, 

1-2 Pilates session with an instructor who doesn’t only get me to do crunches - but works on all aspects of Pilates including mobility and lengthening, 

1-2 Cardio sessions - running, swimming or cycle classes 

Lots of walking. 

And always 1-2 rest days where my body can recover, breathe, be mindful and get out of my Sympathetic (Flight or Fight) Nervous System and just chill. 

I should probably put some more regular Yoga in there, but you can’t be perfect and it’s not a bad combo!