I remember being a teenager and wanting to have a six pack. At that age, you’re learning about life, you’re learning about your body, you’re comparing yourself to everyone else. That was without social media, its ‘Influencers’ and myriad of filters. I honestly can’t imagine what it’s like these days to be a teenager, or young adult. 

What I am seeing in teens and young adults, however, are the results of failed attempts to achieve unrealistic physiques, presumably following social media trends, across all of our clinics - in both NZ and Australia. 

If you’re having a lot of hip pain at night particularly towards the outside of your hip and you are perimenopuasal or menopausal you potentially have outside hip pain syndrome. We used to call it trochanteric bursitis and occasionally it is called Gluteal Tendinopathy. The great news is there has been some amazing research out in the past 5 years which shows exercise therapy is the most effective intervention. Far more effective at 12 months than surgery or a cortisone injection. 

We are absolutely pumped about the City To Surf this year. The bands playing, people supporting and those guys painted blue in Rose Bay. Less excited about Heart Break Hill, but it will be awesome. Whether you're running, or walking, who cares. It will be fun. Even our kiwi team is coming across the ditch for it. 

With 7 weeks to go until the City To Surf, it’s a good reminder of what mistakes we see and how not to make them.

If you’re suffering from lower buttock or sit bone pain it could be your hamstring tendon. It  literally becomes a pain in the ass as it can hang around for months/ years

Your hamstring tendon is normally injured with a sudden change in walking, running or over stretching your hamstring.

Common examples when walking can include a walk where you were walking faster than normal to keep up with someone taller, more walking up hills or just more speed walking

Kinesiophobia! 

Sounds like a pretty severe phobia doesn’t it. 

Basically it’s a fear of movement. 

They’ve done studies on people who have dislocated or subluxed their shoulders. Then had them surgically repaired with a solid physio based rehab program. They are objectively in great  shape, yet anytime they lift their arm out to the side, using some rotation, they hit the panic button. 

1/3 of neck pain after an injury can hang around for over a year. That’s quite a large stat.

Whether that is in the form of your neck catching every time you move, an ongoing ache that comes at the end of the day, or purely your neck feeling stiff and noisy when you wake up.

Research is beginning to come out on solutions for persistent neck pain. 

The two key and MOST effective interventions are a combination of exercise and “hands on” Physio. 

Some injuries can hurt at night. In particular, tendons (the bit at the end of a muscle that attaches to bone). When you injure a tendon they become enlarged and are very sensitive to stretch, or  pressure against bone. For example, if you have a sore outside hip tendon and you lie on your pain-free side, it can wake you up because you are bringing that leg across your body, stretching the tendon against the bone below. This is really, really painful.

If you have overloaded your shoulder rotator cuff tendons, lying on your sore side will generally wake you up. This occurs due to the enlarged tendons pushing against the boy structures above them.

A lot of shoulders get better with a standard approach. Get the rotator cuff working well, sort the shoulder blade mechanics and reduce the load through the tendon for a little while and they slowly but surely get better over 8-16 weeks.

But what if that doesn’t work. What if the exercises make it worse?

The simple answer is that there is probably another area in your body that is not working well. This causes your shoulder to over work or puts your shoulder into a compressed unhappy position. Working an already compressed overworked joint with rotator cuff exercises will simply make it hurt more.

Squats aren’t bad for your knees or your low back. In fact being able to squat well is essential for life. If you can squat well you can sit well. Squatting well protects your low back from injury, creates happier healthier hips and is a compound movement requiring lots of muscles to work. It also triggers the release of testosterone and human growth hormone in your body. 

So here are a few common patterns we see with the squat 

A good motto we have at Balance In Motion is “understand the movements required for the patient to succeed and create resilience and strength in the body. Plus continually review changes in the science”

The way Physiotherapists manage injuries is constantly evolving. Personally i’ve come a long way from pushing the sore bit and putting machines on a patient 23 years ago. We now know that doesn’t work. Another example is when you just injure yourself we now recommend the POLICE protocol not the RICE protocol (more on this later). 

I swear on significant birthdays your body just starts to hurt more. One common site for 85% of the human population is back pain. It can feel pretty awful when you get out of bed in the morning. Rolling over in bed can be a problem and putting on your socks makes you feel older than you are!

The two Nicks and Mitch have given some of their best advice to help reduce your pain today. 

Not many people like clicking on these posts and admitting we are old but … doing these things really works.

Knee pain over 40 can present in a few ways 

• Pain the first few steps in the morning

• Pain at night that aches after more exercise than normal

• A giving way sensation or pain up and down stairs 

• Pain when you’ve been sitting or squatting for a while and go to stand

The most common thing people say to me when they come in is “it’s probably arthritis and i’ll have to live with it”

Kids injuries are different to adult injuries. We regularly see kids from 10-17. It’s really important to understand why our kids get sore and what can be done about it. I hope by  reading this you understand the differences. When your child points at their Achillies tendon it probably isn’t their achilles…..

Kids grow very differently compared to their friends. Did you know that in an under 13 sporting team there could be a variation of 3-5 biological years between them despite all being born within the same year! 

Tennis elbow can be one of the the most frustrating injuries you can get with a common pattern of recovery anywhere between 4 and 18 months. 85% of them get better by 1 year. Pain is located on the outside of the elbow.

Ironically it’s actually very rare to see tennis elbow in a tennis player.

It’s more common in gardeners and parents constantly picking up kids. As we come into spring and the garden triples in size people spend hours in the garden when they haven’t for a while and this leads to the injury.  

Waking up early in the morning when it is pouring outside, it’s dark, you can hear the trees smashing against the side of the house, you know it’s freezing out there ….. It just doesn’t inspire you to leap out of bed and punch out 10000 steps. 

People often complain of feeling sore and stiff during the winter months. Usually people come in and say  “I can tell when the weather is about to change because my old injury/ osteoarthritis starts to hurt more”. 

Golf has a wide variety of health benefits, such as
increasing your cardiovascular capacity, improving your strength and
endurance, and challenging your motor control and coordination.

While golf is generally considered a low-risk sport, the explosiveness of a golf
swing and the repetitions required to progress in skill can lead to a wide
variety of injuries occurring, most commonly around the back and upper
limb. Because of this, it is important to ensure you are spending time
improving your strength and mobility, so that your body is ready for the
demands of golf.

The journey of coming to a Physio, understanding why you were injured, committing to a plan and finding a goal big enough to do the rehab is a tough journey. 

You will be tested along the way and if you pass those tests you come out better and stronger than ever (ideally).

Having done some work recently with a mindset coach called Ben Elliot in South Australia I couldn’t help but think of the injury journey and the similarities. I’ve taken his teachings and applied them to the injury journey. To hopefully set you up for success. It’s also important to know you’re not alone and that you’re human. However the hard work to achieve your goal will be worth it so read on. 

The majority of people come and see us because they are in pain and want a diagnosis and a plan to get better. Pain is frustrating and it can be scary, particularly because you don’t know what is going on. It can also make you grumpy. Are you going to be ok? Do you have arthritis? Will you be able to make the start line? 
 
We now know that two people's experiences of the same pain, even if that pain is at the same level, can be perceived completely differently. How do we know this? Functional MRI studies of the brain have given us a lot of those answers.