Why Hands-On Treatment Isn't Always Best Despite what we might think when we think of Physiotherapy, hands-on treatment isn’t always the best path to healing. Imagine this: You’ve been dealing with persistent pain or discomfort, and you decide to seek help from a physiotherapist. You’ve heard that hands-on treatment can work wonders, and indeed, it can! It reduces pain, improves blood flow, and can make you feel better overall.  However our experienced team at APC Physio know there is more to it than that and here’s the twist: it might not be the complete solution you’re looking for ..read more

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Don’t make your pain worse When you have an injury, pain or niggle, it’s human nature to try to do something to help it. Most people will start to do something themselves, it may be a simple movement or a stretch.  Oftentimes, people will repeat the movement that is sore expecting it to help. Most times it doesn’t.  There are certain circumstances when you do need to repeat some movements or exercises and gradually build up the tolerance. But this is only after an assessment to find out what is going on. Most of the time it won’t help, or can make it worse! With most injuries ..read more

Should you strength train in older age? The simple answer is YES. That said, it is more nuanced than a simple yes. Now, let me explain a bit first. With ageing comes a natural loss in muscle strength and power. This loss can lead to a decrease in function and increase in the risk of falling. Through research, it is estimated that after your 6th decade of life, there is a 3.6% loss in muscle strength each year. Realistically and functionally this does mean that older adults need to exert considerably more effort to perform daily tasks (Stairs, In & Out of Cars etc). Examples of this woul ..read more

Build the engine slowly, surely and avoid overload Without doubt, one of the major drivers of injury we see in the clinic is overload from training spikes and subsequent injury which follows this. Regardless of your running distance, it’s important to gradually increase your mileage and intensity to allow your body to adapt and avoid overuse injuries. One of the most crucial aspects of any training program is gradual progression.. Aim to increase your weekly mileage by no more than 10% to minimize the risk of injury. If you are more conditioned and up to a level of running half and full ..read more

Hamstring Injuries Are The Bain of Every Sports Persons Life Essential Advice For Players & Coaches Hamstring injuries are notoriously tricky to get right. They have a high recurrence rate and result in key players missing significant amounts of training and in worse cases losing their place on the team.  This fact is supported in the scientific research. Reinjury figures are ranging from twenty two to thirty four percent for that injury with other longer term studies demonstrating a four times increased risk in repeat injury with each episode of hamstring strain.  So if you ..read more

Body part or Movement Training? The reason I’m writing this blog is in reaction to a Tweet I read the other day – and more so the reaction to it. The tweet was aimed at adolescent style training “We need to move away from Body Part Training – More towards Movement Training”. There was SUCH a divide in the comments. This also is perfect timing as we have started running teen fitness classes. So, here goes…. We assume, like us, you have heard from friends, colleagues and coaches about what training is; OR you’ve seen it on social media what a certain person does as their training. Great – tha ..read more

Getting to the root cause of your pain Another way of putting this is finding out where your ‘’chink in the chain’’ is, in relation to your body and overall health and daily life.  Once this has been found after a thorough examination, we must work consistently at addressing and progressing the root cause of these weaker spots. Sometimes, we like to employ what we call the ‘‘80/20 rule’’. Now what’s that you ask? Lets say, you’re feeling pain in your knee. We assess and discover that there is some irritation on certain weight bearing movements like a lunge or a deep squat.  Everyt ..read more

Common Question's Parents Ask Our Physios About Their Sporty Children Is my 14 years old child overdoing their exercise? They are out doing something at least five times per week. Are they doing too much training?  My two teenage children have recently started lifting weights.  I have concerns.. Will this affect their growth? The last thing I want is them getting injured.  My 12 years old  boy complains of knee pain every few weeks. It is obvious that he has slowed down but still trains with his club every week. Is there something I should be concerned about? I’ve noticed ..read more

What is Plantar Fasciitis and what can be done about it? What is Plantar Fasciitis? Plantar fasciitis is probably the most common form of heel pain that we see here in the clinic. It involves inflammation and degeneration of the thick tissue that runs along the sole of the foot. This usually presents as pain to the inside and central aspects of the heel as well as being felt along the length of the arch. This can take from 3 – 12 months to recover from with the vast majority of people having full resolution in under 6 months. In the clinic, we tend to find that most cases will resolve ..read more