Tag Archives: Back Pain

January 12 – Issue 16

Welcome to 2012

Hello, Happy New Year and best wishes for the year ahead. I hope the Christmas festivities were full of fun, laughter and plenty of good food!  A lot of people now have set their New Year resolutions and I wish you all of the best with them. I would guess a few have aimed to lose a few of the Christmas pounds but on, so exercise is probably on the agenda in the near future. This issue deals with Goal Setting with activity so take a look, it may give some handy hints on how to do it in a safer and more beneficial way. There is also an article on low back pain, highlighting possible causes of lower back pain, how to deal with it and where help may be found for it.

Lower Back Pain

Lower back pain (LBP) does not have a specific cause and can occur in a number of scenarios. It could be an isolated incident, such as a fall, lifting something incorrectly, amongst other. It may be building up over time as well. This could be caused by bad posture, being overweight, smoking, or excessive time in a constant position (such as sitting on a chair or in a car).¹

These scenarios could cause sprains andd strains in muscles and ligament, a disc prolapse (slipped disc) or a damaged spinal facet joint. The majority of cases of LBP get resolved pretty quickly, but if it becomes a problem after a month or so, it would be advisable to visit your GP for advise on further treatment. Short term treatment may include heat packs or heat cream, anti-inflammatories or simply a bit of rest. Longer term solutions may involve a stretching programme, physiotherapy, massage or acupuncture. These treatments need to be advised and discussed when visiting your GP. Very severe cases may require surgical procedures to alleviate the problem.

Recent research has suggested that massage along with a suitable exercise programme and knowledge given to the injured individual showed significant benefits in the decrease in pain and discomfort in the individuals with LBP². Whether the problem is acute or chronic LBP, it is important that the injured individual has a specifically designed programme to follow as each person and injury are different.

Goal Setting

Activity or rehabilitation has to have an aim and goal setting in the right way will help achieve those aims in a realistic manner. Following the acronym SMART, it can be a planned and easily manageable process³.

           SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Realistic and Time-managed. Each step should be followed correctly.

  • SPECIFIC – You must know exactly what it is that you want to achieve. Its not worth saying “to get fit” as that is too general, so something like “to run continuously for 30 minutes” is better.
  • MEASURABLE – Have an end target which can be worked towards. The example above is also suitable.
  • AGREED – This could be by yourself or with a trainer/coach or therapist. Get it in writing so if you forget it will be there and is a good tool to motivate yourself.
  • REALISTIC – Smaller achievable goals are better then 1 large one. Breaking down a large goal is the best way to achieve this as each small realistic target improves motivation when achieved. An example is if you wanted o run 30 minutes as the final goal. Breaking it down into 10 weeks, in which 3 minutes per week can be added, is easier to achieve then running 30 minutes all at once straight away.
  • Time-managed – Have a suitable time frame for your specific goal. Using our previous example, you could make your aim “to run continuously for 30 minutes by March”. This shows that from January to March, you can have sub-goals that can involve each month or week, going as far as days in the week as well if desired.

Remembering the important parts mentioned above will help achieve any goal for any individual. Seeing a health professional is advisable when planning goals as they can help advise the individual of a safe and suitable programme to follow.

 Quick Facts

1.  “1% fluid loss during exercise effects maximal performance, so keep as hydrated as possible.”

2. “Outdoor activity improves muscle stability better then when indoors.”

3. “Caffeine can reduce the onset of ‘muscle burning’ during an exercise session.”

References

 1. Www.backcare.org.uk

2. Furlan A.D., et al., (2008), Massage for Low-back Pain, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (online), 4:CD001929, Source: PubMed

3. Heaney C., Thought for Sport, International Therapist, Issue 98 (October 2011), pp. 10-12.

October 09 – Issue 7

Once again, welcome to the latest edition of my newsletter. The British summer once again has failed to deliver consistent weather but we all come to expect that now. I hope that it didn’t ruin your summer. With the children back at school and settled in the roads will be busy again, though the house may be a bit tidier now there is no-one left there to mess it up! Soon there will be the next big event, yes, you are right, Christmas!!!!! By the time the next newsletter is sent it will have come and gone! So if you would like to treat a friend or relative to a massage you can get gift vouchers from myself to the value of £5, £10 or £20. If interested, get in touch through my contact details. Don’t forget that introducing a new person to the business will entitle you to 10% discount on your next visit!

Persistent Lower Back Pain?

What do you do if you have an annoying pain in your back that you don’t know what it is and how it came around? First of all you need to try and recall any impact you may have had or if you did something out of the ordinary which made the back work more then usual, then find a therapist and tell them about it to find out how to fix it. The incident could be a very old problem that didn’t get the right rehabilitation when it happened so it repaired in a less then optimal way. A therapist will attempt to find out if there is a structural problem or if the problem is a muscular problem. There are many muscles in the back and the lower back has a major part to play in keeping the trunk upright and keeping good posture. Once a decision has been made on the problem, targets for the individual are to be made. Initial targets are to reduce pain in a safe and cost effective way so the individual can still carry out everyday tasks and improve their psychological feelings about the problem¹. Rehabilitation programs for the individual should include 3 things:- Suitable exercises, manual therapy and advice and education to the injured individual.

 Exercises 

Exercises should be pain free and that may mean non-weight bearing, so water exercises. This allows the heart to have a good work out and doesn’t put as much impact on the lower back as we previously mentioned that the lower back work very hard to maintain posture and stability in the trunk. There should also be a variety of strengthening exercises for the back muscles and core muscles.

Manual Therapy

Manual therapy should be used alongside  the other intervention of exercise. Manuaal therapy will reduce pain in the individual as it relaxes the muscles and improves the functionality of those muscles as well, reducing stress when they are made to work.

Advice to client

This is also an essential part of the rehabilitation process as an individual who is recovering from injury will need to know what to do when they leave the therapy session. Exercises and stretches to perform between meeting are essential and performing these will allow the recovery to continue without the therapist as well. On the opposite end, there must be guidance on how much to do because exercising too much may cause the problem to worsen instead of improve.

How fit am I and how can I find out???

The definition of fitness is difficult to pinpoint, as people have different views on what fitness is and how fit you should be. The American College of Sports Medicine define fitness as the ability to perform your everyday activities with the absence of illness and injury². So for most people finding out how fit they are actually means, “How long can I keep going before I have to stop?” This is called aerobic capacity or understood in easier terms, how long will my heart go before it wont let me exercise any more! There are a number of ways to find this out and they are through special tests which can differ in duration, intensity and objective. The most common is the multi-stage fitness test or bleep test which is used at all levels of ability at all ages to assess how much a person can run. The test is simple to set up and you follow timings of a beep on a pre-recorded test, which get harder to complete the further you run. You run between 2 markers set up 20 meters apart and must reach the opposite marker before the beep sounds. You can buy the tests online or ask if a local gym has one you can use to perform the test. If this is not possible and you would like some sort of indication of your aerobic levels, feel free to get in touch and I will try and advise on a suitable test you can perform. From this test athletes performing at higher levels within their sport may decide to undertake more specific tests, such as the wicket sprint test for cricket³ or the sit and reach test for hamstring flexibility in gymnastics.                 

              Other tests used are:-

  • Yo-yo intermittent test
  • 12 minute Cooper test
  • Birtell 40 meter shuttle test
  • Balke treadmill test
  • Bruce protocol test
  • Harvard step test
  • Astrand-Rhyming Cycle ergometer test

 If you would like to know further information on how to perform any of the above or any other you may have come across, please feel free to ask.

Quick Facts!!!

“A hiccup is a result of an involuntary contraction of the diaphragm which causes air to rush to the lungs and vocal cords to snap shut.³”

“There are 639 muscles in the human body, yet it was only in the 18th century that they got their modern day names.³”

“The muscular system is made up of around 6 trillion muscle fibres, thinner then a human hair, but  able to support 1000 times its own weight! ³”

References

1. Jackson, A., Pysiotherapy Guidelines for Managing Persistent Low Back Pain: Exercise and Manual Therapy, SportEx Medicine, Issue 34 (October 2007), pp. 16-19.

2. ACSM, www.acsm.org

3. Woolmer, S., The Modern Approach, SportEx Dynamics, Issue 16 (April 2008), pp. 19-21.

April 08 – Issue 1

Welcome to the first edition of my quarterly newsletter aimed to inform you of recent news and updates in the sports massage and sports injury industry.

Massage reduces sleep disturbance

A study carried out in 2007 found that two massage sessions a week for 5 weeks, significantly reduced sleep disturbances amongst a group of individuals with a history of at least 6 months lower back pain and sleeping problems. Along with improved sleeping patterns and back pain, anxiety and depression were also reduced in the massage group compared with the control group.¹

Cheap trainers ‘just as good’

The University of Dundee conducted a study comparing trainers retailing at different costs. It suggests that cheap and moderately priced trainers are sometimes better than the more expensive trainers. They found no differences in pressure or comfort in trainers ranging from £40 – £75.² 

1.Lower back pain is reduced by massage therapy, Field, T. et al. , Journal of bodywork and movement therapies, 2007;11(2)Apr:21-24.

2. From International Therapist, 2007;79, Nov/Dec: 6