Physiotherapy Column

As the weather warms up, many of us are looking for cooler exercise options. Water running is a great choice as it can be scaled up and down for fitness and experience level. With the added summer benefit of being in the water. There are a few different ways you can engage in water running – each with varying technique, intensity and muscles used. Since water provides resistance to movement, all forms of water running will load the hip flexors ...
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Let’s talk knee injuries. The knee joint is relatively simple and moves as a hinge joint (i.e bending and straightening). The joint itself is an articulation between our femur (thigh bone) and our tibia (shin bone) for the hinge movement and patella (kneecap) sitting over the front to increase our quad strength. There are a series of ligaments, articular cartilage and muscles that are involved in this joint. Ligaments and Meniscus Collateral Ligaments: attach between the femur and the tibia ...
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Shoulder Joint Anatomy The shoulder is known as a ball and socket joint and is made up of three bones: the humerus, scapular and clavicle. The humerus is stabilised in your shoulder socket through your rotator cuff. The rotator cuff is a group of four muscles that merge together as tendons to wrap around the head of the humerus . As the tendons assist in the rotation of your shoulder they are therefore named the rotator cuff. The four muscles ...
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Hip muscles When people think of the hip muscles or buttocks, they often think of “the glutes”. What is often underestimated, is just what exactly “the glutes” incorporates. There are 3 main muscle groups (and functions) in the gluteal region. 1 - Hip abductors Made up of gluteus minimus and gluteus medius, they do hip abduction (ie taking the leg away from the body). One of their most important roles, is in hip and knee stability. They prevent the hip ...
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Years of full-time dance, hip surgery as a teenager and a semi-recent auto-immune diagnosis means that every so often my body goes a little bit haywire and throws out a variety of physical symptoms (a flare up) that impact my day to day activities. Yes, your physio can be sore too! The nature of our work means that we are physically and mentally active for the majority of the day. Which all adds to that accumulative strain we talk about ...
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At Barefoot Physiotherapy we love meeting new clients and helping kick start them of their health journey. For most clients it is important to be completing their own exercises and muscle releases between appointments to maintain improvements. In a session with a Barefoot Physio we will do a head-to-toe assessment to work out what muscles need to be released to help improve your movement quality and reduce muscle tension. Completing these muscle releases daily is ideal as this will help ...
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By Caitlin Sargent: As a physio I, along with many of my clients, expect I would rarely suffer injuries. As an elite athlete though it is kind of considered part of the deal. While it would be nice to always prevent all injuries, the nature of everyone’s lives is that at some point we are often going to accumulate too much strain and experience some degree of stiffness, pain or injury. It may be a slow gradual onset of tightness ...
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Treatment Direction Tests and Individualised Treatment Every body is different in its experience of movement and load. People have different postures, different exercise/activities, different injury history with different compensation strategies and different daily load from life, based on occupational demands, sleeping positions and much more. As a result, no two bodies are identical or present in the same way. In fact, two people can present with the same symptoms but with very different tight muscles and joints. Consequently, they improve ...
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At Barefoot Physio we treat the whole person, not just the specific injury that brought you in. In physio we are often told to “look at the joint one above and one below”. This means if you come in with knee symptoms, your hip and ankle will also be assessed and potentially treated. The Barefoot Treatment Plan goes one further and assesses your whole body in our 'full body assessment' in order to find where the restriction and cause of ...
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At Barefoot Physiotherapy we utilise a variety of techniques to help reduce pain and decrease muscle tightness. One of these techniques is called Dry Needling. Why we choose Dry Needling? It has numerous positive immune effects: It helps stimulate local endorphin release (which helps relieve pain) and it can increase blood flow to the symptomatic area. It has a pain gating mechanism – which essentially helps to introduce a new sensation to a painful area, over riding the original painful ...
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A common question we hear after a pain flare up or acute injury is “so, should I rest for a while?”.   The exact answer will depend on the injury but usually it’s either “no” or “yes, but only for a few days”.  Using a back flare up as an example – we’ll recommend to our clients to take it easy for a few days, resting in comfortable positions (but changing positions every 45-60 mins), using anti-inflammatories and heat as appropriate, ...
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Written by Catherine - Yoga Physio As both a physio and a yoga teacher I can honestly say one of the best things you can do for your yoga practice is to use props!  It’s a legitimate game changer. It’s common for teachers to make suggestions of using a block or bolster throughout a yoga class, but often it’s a bit more difficult to work out exactly how or why you should be using them, especially as we have more ...
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More time for running With gyms closed and exercise options somewhat reduced compared to normal, a lot of people are turning to running for their endorphin dose. Running is a great form of exercise, with the added bonus of getting some vitamin D and some seeing some fresh scenery. However, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. A sudden rise in running volume can lead to injuries, so I’ve put together my suggestions for how ...
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More time at home can mean more time for hobbies With many of us spending more time at home, we’re seeing people able to engage more with their hobbies (or even taking up new ones). It’s great to see creativity and passion being nourished like this. While the brain loves being engaged in an activity to the point of losing track of time, often the body feels otherwise. Awkward positions and long periods of sitting are just some of the ...
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Barefoot’s 10 step plan Client’s will often ask us how we will best determine the cause of their symptoms or ask us what sets us apart from other physiotherapy clinics. Our answer is simple, our Barefoot Physiotherapy Treatment Plan. Every client we see at Barefoot Physiotherapy is always approached with the same treatment plan, a 10 step process to help you get back to living your Barefoot Lifestyle. Now 10 steps may sound like a lot but I’m going to ...
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Corticosteroid Injections To get a Corticosteroid injection or not is a common question we as Physiotherapists are often asked by clients. As health professionals we always respond in a way that provides our clients with all the details and facts they need to know to help them make an informed decision. Corticosteroid injections are essentially a very strong form of anti-inflammatory medication. They are administered by a medical practitioner and can be given into either a painful joint or muscle ...
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It is a common complaint One of the most frequent problems we see in the clinic, is people with tight shoulders. Given the prevalence of desk jobs, many consider tight shoulders just a fact of modern life. However we often find that tight upper traps are rarely the real issue and rather they are a symptom of the body being unhappy. In particular, we find that tension in the upper traps is often present when there is neural irritation. Nerves ...
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Old injuries and Accumulative Strain Remember that incident from years and years back? The one has completely healed and doesn’t give you any pain, but it was a pretty big deal at the time? It may not seem related to a pain you are currently experiencing, and maybe it isn’t, but no matter where or what the injury was, it DID cause load and strain on the body. This load and strain causes other muscles and nerve pathways to fire ...
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Our rib cage is an essential for protection of our organs, having a strong trunk and is involved in our everyday movements, like breathing or turning our bodies. Our rib cage rises and falls with each breath using the muscles between the ribs and our diaphragm. Just like any other joint and muscle, these areas can be loaded and irritated. Rib pain is frustrating and can be treated with Physiotherapy. Symptoms Sometimes rib pain is hard to describe because there ...
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Nerve pain is a common contributing factor to a person’s overall pain presentation. It can cause tight muscles, stiff joints and restricted movements. Sometimes this pain is harder to describe and localize making it a difficult condition to understand. Nerve pain can be also be described as nerve irritation or nerve inflammation. When specific branch of a nerve is involved, it will often be named after that nerve. Here are some common examples: Piriformis syndrome – involving the sciatic nerve ...
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Hi everyone! Hannah here again. This time I'm going to be taking you through one of my favourite exercises to do - the Squat.  It's a lot more complex than you think and I've spent considerable time trying to get mine right, so I can become stronger and also lessen the risk of injury as I increase weights in the Gym.  Here's what I've got to share with you: What is a squat? When people think of a squat, often ...
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At Barefoot Physiotherapy we utilise techniques from multiple learnings all combined into our unique Barefoot Physiotherapy Plan. These techniques include; LJ Lee's training in The Thoracic Ring Approach™all of our Bachelor/Masters degrees, Mulligan, Maitland and Ridgway Methods, Western Acupuncture, Dry Needling, and Pain Science/Graded Motor Imagery. We are continually learning and evolving our Framework and an essential part of it is the Thoracic Ring training we have had. The Thoracic Ring Approach™ is an innovative assessment and treatment technique for ...
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So what is a return to walking program? We have great evidence to support gentle activity/movement being beneficial to our bodies. And the current recommendations are 30min x 5 days a week + 2 strength based sessions. So what if you can’t physically manage to walk 30min most days of the week? And you’d like to? Now if you can play a soccer game or run 10km this may not interest you… BUT you may know someone that you can ...
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I'm getting into exercise, but I haven’t exercised before. Where do I begin? Our Barefoot plan brings our clients to step 10 which is ‘Living your Barefoot Lifestyle’, this includes being able to start new activities and try new things! You can also bring this up with us at any other step in the plan. Exercise can be anything that you find enjoyable, that is the first step. Let’s find out what it is you like to do! That way, ...
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We all like to relax but more often than not, life gets busy. With the lead up to Christmas, school holidays, work deadlines and.... well the list goes on! This time of year can be particularly stressful and overwhelming.  It’s even more important to carve out time for active self-care when things start to get crazy. And no, I’m not just talking about watching Christmas movies on the couch!! Relax! I’m going to run you through a few, 5-10 minute ...
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You may have said out loud at some point “I really need to roll out my ___ (insert muscle here)” or "I need to do a self release". It has been back and forth in research, about whether the mechanisms through which rolling out muscles or doing self releases works, if at all. The next question we often ask ourselves is “Where and how much should I be doing?”. A recent review (see reference below) has gone into more detail ...
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Neck pain is one of the most common conditions that we treat at Barefoot. While there are sometimes acute or traumatic injuries (such as whiplash from a car accident) that can cause neck pain, far more common is pain caused by accumulative strain. This essentially means a variety of contributing factors such as posture (think time in front of the computer or looking down at your phone), sleeping position, stress and even exercise have built up over time, which is ...
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Do you have neck or shoulder pain that gets worse after a day at work? Have you thought about the way you sit at your desk could be contributing to strain building up in the body. Making sure you think about your body position throughout the day can reduce unwanted niggles and make you feel more comfortable. While every desk space is different and every worker has individualized needs, here are a few general upper body tips to get you ...
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When there is pain in your head, it can be difficult to tell whether you are experiencing a headache or a migraine. Therefore it is important to work out which one it is. Faster diagnosis of a headache or migraine means faster relief through better treatments. So, how can you tell the difference between a headache and a migraine? What is a headache? Headaches are unpleasant pains in your head. They cause pressure and aching. It can feel like your neck it tight ...
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Did you know Jaw pain can be treated. It can be common for clients to come to Barefoot Physiotherapy and end up getting an internal jaw release from one of the physios. Having a jaw release can sometimes come as a bit of a shock to people. This is because even though most people mention tension being held in the jaw, jaw pain, clenching or grinding, it isn’t usually directly addressed. What is Jaw pain? The small muscles in the ...
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