This is a link to a sample program so you can see how it works. It is set up for myself as a sample. Once you have clicked on the link you can then chose to watch videos of the exercises and print the exercises out. It also has a tick sheet that you print out and complete as you go along with the program. Please have a look

Click here to see the sample program

Any questions please phone us on 0113 286 0333 or contact us through the website.

Ove

Firstly I have to apologise, I have been very busy in recent months with the work in the clinic and I have sadly neglected the blog lately. I am aiming to correct that over the next few weeks and months as I have some exciting ideas for it so keep checking back or even better subscribe to the blog and receive it straight to your inbox.

Well as the headline says, I will attempt to answer the most common question put to me by nearly every patient I see who is suffering from back pain.

“What can I do to make sure this doesn’t happen again?”

Well as you can imagine every patient have a slightly different problem in the back but there are some common trends which we can change to make it less likely that your back pain returns.Unfortunately the statistics aren’t on your side, most people who get back pain have a recurring problem at some point in their life. But considering 80% of the population will have back pain at some point in their life, we can only conclude that this is normal.

The easy answer is, you need to move more.

I know what you are thinking, “but I am fairly active/I have an active job that keeps me busy etc.” so let me qualify my statement a little. The majority of people these days have jobs that require them to be sedentary for large parts of the day in a sitting posture or that they are very repetitive. We are increasingly commuting further and further for work and this is done in a sedentary sitting posture. Some people then go home and sit watching tv or at the computer at home in the evening.

What I am trying to highlight is that the problem isn’t movement but the lack of variety of movement. Do something that does the opposite of what your dominant pattern of movement is. Now I am not going to prescribe any exercises here because it is all so individual, but there should be no limit to what you can take part in from simple things like walking to joining the gym, cycling, doing pilates or yoga or take up a martial art. The recent guidelines for treatment of chronic low back pain by the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists puts exercise as one of the main components to include in the rehabilitation of back pain. It did not single out any one form of exercise and showed that general exercise was as good as pilates based exercise in terms of returning people to a pain free state. With that in mind, is any one exercise better than the other in preventing back pain?

I believe in movement and the activation of your muscles, if your body gets some variety of movement it will maintain the muscles in a more active, healthier state so that they are better able to protect and support your spine when you need it. The best form of exercise is the one that you enjoy, for that is the exercise you will continue with.

in essence you need to move more…

The topic for todays blog is a new ( to these shores) and unique treatment method for musculoskeletal disorders called Neurac (Neuromuscular Activation). The Neurac method consists of specially tailored tests, exercises and techniques in Redcord slings, and has proven to give immediate and long time results for a lot of musculoskeletal disorders. Research shows that physical inactivity or pain can deactivate one or more muscles, forcing other muscles to compensate and become stressed or over-worked. This often leads to movement dysfunction and pain. 
the Neurac method aims to activate these deactivated or partially deactivated muscles. The activation can cause immediate relief from acute and chronic muscle pain in just one treatment.

One patient who I was treating a couple of months ago was struggling to lift his arm above his head after he had had a fall and landed on his shoulder. He was due to go in for surgery for this but felt that he wanted a physiotherapy opinion before going ahead with the surgery After examining the problem and establishing the cause we performed a couple of muscle activation exercises in the Redcord slings and he was able to use his full range of motion, within three sessions this became a permanent change. Now this doesn’t happen every time we use the slings but most patients notice a marked improvement in symptoms after the first session.

So how does it work?Well the first stage is to identify the weak links in the system or if you like inactive muscles and weaknesses in the core muscles or the coordination between muscles. Even top trained athletes may have weak links, which can occur when stabilizer muscles switch off due to pain, strain, fatigue or inactivity. Individual treatment and/or training program are then developed based on the indentified weak links. The program consists of controlled, pain free exercises in slings. The goal is to improve the interaction between the brain, neural receptors and muscles. This treatment is called Neurac (Neuromuscular Activation), because that is what it does it activates these ‘sleeping’ muscles by stimulating the neural and muscular system. The tests and exercises have been specifically designed for this purpose. The reactivation of this system restores function, builds up strength and prevents relapses.

Our clinic is the only clinic in Great Britain with the Redcord sling system installed in the clinic and that has been trained in the treatment method although the method is very popular in Scandinavia, Central Europe, the USA and in several Asian countries. If you are interested in learning more about how this unique and new treatment method can help with your pain and dysfunction please contact us and we will be very happy to discuss it with you. You can also learn more from the Redcord Website (www.Redcord.com)

Are you ready to be activated?

A few years ago when we talked about the core we thought of our stomach muscles and everyone was doing lots and lots of abdominal work in isolation, working on their six pack to improve their core strength. Then in the early nineties a clever group of physiotherapists in Australia managed to isolate a dysfunctional muscle in the deep abdominal muscles in a population of low back pain sufferers, and this has subsequently become the basis for many postgraduate courses looking into low back stability and core stability, in the fitness world this has spilled into things like pilates. With this approach, muscles are taught how to activate in isolation to rehabilitate or activate them which make them work more normally and in theory this would give your core stability.

These ideas have now been developed further and new ideas have come out of this and we don’t focus necessarily on single small muscles but rather look into how the body is working in functional positions and identifying the weak links in the chain.

The core muscles does not only consist of the abdominal musculature, but also consists of the trunk muscles, pelvic muscles and quite importantly the muscles of the hips and shoulders. You see it is already getting quite complicated. These muscles have the specific role of providing stability for the limbs to be able to do highly specific and detailed tasks, and in sports this quite often means the ability to transfer forces from the centre out to the limbs as seen in activities such as running kicking and throwing. But also this transfer of power is also evident in things like pushing a door open, hoovering and ironing. If certain muscles or muscle groups become weak and inefficient there becomes a weak point in the chain which may cause either a poor alignment of the joints causing stress onto structures and muscles around those joints, this is often seen in runners who have ITB problems or shin splints, as well as not being able to support the spine in performing functional activites such as lifting.

To give you some numbers, the hip and abdominal musculature account for about 50% of the energy used during throwing, if the just one muscle involved in this energy transfer that occurs between the hips and the shoulder is not doing its job there will be a less efficient movement in the chain and there will have to be some compensation to achieve the same task. In a study by Kibler published in 1996 there was an analysis of a tennis serve and they reconed if there was a 20% deficit in the core muscles, then there would need to be 34% more arm speed or 80% more shoulder muscle mass to compensate for this. Interestingly in another study they found that 49% of athletes who had torn their roator cuff in their shoulder demonstrated poor flexibility around the hip and weakness in the hip abductors which they thought was linked to the poor power transfer causing the shoulder to over compensate.

If you are suffering from any upper and lower limb injury as well as pain in the spine, your functional core stability needs to be assessed and an appropriate rehabilitation program needs to be set. This should be very individual to you and work with your lifestyle whether your problem is doing the house work or if you are an elite athlete. The program needs to be progressive and as soon as you have mastered one activity it needs to be progressed to ensure a quick return to your sport or activities.

If you have any questions of how we can help you with the problems you are facing or you would like to improve your core stability for performance reasons we will be more than happy to help you reach your goals of a happy and health lifestyle.