Author: Amy Cram

Understanding Hamstring Strains - Physio Direct NZ

Understanding Hamstring Strains

What Your Hamstrings Do

Let’s get clued up on hamstring strains; why you may have one, what you can do to help and how to prevent a future injury. The hamstrings are a group of three muscles; the biceps femoris, semimembranosus and semitendinosus. You can feel these muscles if you place your hands on your sitting bones where the muscles originate and slide your hands down the back of your legs. The main action of these muscles is to bend your knee, take your leg out behind you and to assist rotation of your knee, especially when performing accelerating and decelerating actions.

What is a Hamstring Strain?

A strain/pull/tear is when the muscle fibres are overstretched. Injuries are frequently felt as a short sharp pain in the back of your thigh whilst exercising. A hamstring strain will typically happen when running just before your foot hits the ground. At this point, the hamstrings are working eccentrically to control the forward motion of the two lower leg bones, your tibia and fibula. Pain is often the most debilitating symptom affecting your ability to continue exercising and may cause a limp. Other symptoms include swelling, bruising, muscle spasm and reduced movement at your knee.

Different Kinds of Hamstring Strains

Strains can be categorised into 3 different grades. 1 being the mildest with a small number of fibres being torn to grade 3 being the most severe which can be a complete muscle rupture. The good news is muscles have a fantastic blood supply and should heal within 3-12 weeks depending on the degree of injury. However, the flexible skeletal muscle fibres, which your muscles are made up of, are replaced with much more inflexible tough scar tissue, which is where physio’s come in. Specific rehabilitation such as specialist stretching, strengthening, taping and soft tissue techniques can dramatically influence how muscle fibres are restructured reducing the amount of scar tissue speeding up the healing process helping you return to sport quicker. With any soft tissue injury, R.I.C.E (rest, ice, compression, elevation) should always be your first response.

Why Strains Happen

A physio will be able to perform a thorough assessment and educate you on why you sustained a hamstring strain in the first place. Common factors that can predispose you to hamstring strains are not warming up or cooling down properly, tight hamstrings or hip flexors, weak hamstrings or gluteal (butt) muscles, training at a high intensity without adequate training or altered biomechanics.

What You Can Do

Runners often have short, weak hamstrings, tight hamstrings will restrict the length of your strides when running meaning you have to work harder to cover the same distance as you would with adequately lengthened hamstrings. Chronically tight hamstrings can cause not only hamstring strains but can contribute to back pain, knee pain and leg length discrepancies. So even if you have never stretched before it may be a good time to start stretching!

So to prevent yourself pulling a hammy make sure you warm up and cool down properly including effective stretching of not just your hamstrings but hip flexors, quadriceps and calf muscles, do sport specific strength and conditioning and avoid sudden increases in intensity of exercise. On your next visit why not ask your physio and find out how healthy your hamstrings are.

If you require professional advice or treatment, please see our range of treatment options, or book an appointment online. Physio Direct has many clinics located throughout New Zealand, with no GP referral required to make an appointment.

Proprioception and Balance - Physio Direct NZ

Proprioception and Balance

Started a new exercise regime lately and noticed your balance isn’t quite up to scratch? Chances are, you need to dial things back a little and return to the basics. Balance is an important part of fitness and improving your balance can dramatically improve your performance.

What is balance?

Balance is a state in which weight is evenly distributed in order to prevent falling.  Balance has major parts:

  • Sight
  • Vestibular system (the inner ear)
  • Proprioception

Change any one of these three variables and you’ll challenge your balance in different ways.

What is proprioception?

Proprioception refers to the awareness of a person about their body’s position in space.  The origin of the word is derived from Latin, and it translates as “one’s own perception”. The central nervous system gains sensory input from receptors in the skin known as mechanoreceptors. This information is processed by the brain, and helps to translate data sent from the body in the form of vibrations, pressure, motion and joint position.  Proprioception helps to maintain stability.

How can I test and improve my proprioception?

  1. Stand with two feet together.
  2. Close your eyes.
  3. Count how long you can maintain your balance for.
  4. Try again, this time standing on one foot. Close your eyes only once you have found a steady posture with your eyes open.
  5. To increase difficulty, stand on an uneven surface, like a pillow on the floor. Start by standing with two feet together; stand on one foot if this becomes too easy.

While this isn’t a definitive test, if there is a significant difference in your balance when your eyes are open to when your eyes are close, or from the right side to the left side, your proprioception might be a little diminished.

 

Speak to your physiotherapist for more practical tips on how to reduce injury incidence by improving your balance and proprioception.

Please click the download button below to print out a free copy of our newsletter.

Meniscal Tears - Physio Direct NZ

Meniscal Tears

The knees take a lot of impact when doing medium- or high-impact activities such as running, jumping, hill-walking and playing field sports.  The meniscus is commonly damaged during these activities, and can be a cause of significant pain and movement dysfunction if damaged.  What exactly is this mysterious meniscus, and why is it so important?

 

What is the role of the meniscus?

The meniscus is a thin, fibrous cartilage lining the bones of the knee.  Its main function is to absorb shock when performing weight-bearing activities such as walking, running or hopping.

The meniscus in the knee is c-shaped, and there is one on the outside (lateral) and one on the inside (medial) knee joint. The medial meniscus is more commonly damaged than the lateral meniscus, because of the fact that more weight is transferred through the medial knee joint in normal movement.

What causes meniscal damage?

Twisting forces most frequently damage the meniscus.  For example, if a soccer player’s foot is planted on the ground and their body rotates around the knee, the meniscus will often be unable to withstand the pressure and will sustain a strain or a tear.  This can be of varying degrees, to a few stretched fibres right up to a large tear involving multiple areas of the cartilage. A locking, clicking or clunking may be felt in the knee upon movement.  Your physiotherapist will be able to perform clinical tests to check whether the meniscus is likely to have been damaged or not.

Can I recover from a meniscal injury?

Depending on the extent and location of the injury, many patients have excellent functional outcomes with physiotherapy management. This typically involves strengthening the muscles around the knee as well as increasing the range and training task-specific activities. Sometimes, a referral to an orthopaedic doctor can help to determine whether or not surgery may be appropriate.  If you have any doubts, talk to your physiotherapist about your options.

 

None of the information in this newsletter is a replacement for proper medical advice. Always see a medical professional for advice on your individual injury.

Please click the download button below to print out a free copy of our newsletter.

Lizzie’s Toasted Museli - Physio Direct NZ

Lizzie’s Toasted Museli

Ingredients:

2-3 cups Quick Cook Oats

2 cups Bran

1-2 cups All Bran

2 cups Sunflower Seeds

2 cups Pumpkin Seeds

1 cups Linseed

1 cups Coconut Chips

1 cups Shredded Coconut

1 cups Almonds or Brazil nuts

1 cup Cold pressed oil

1 cup Honey

2 Tbsp Quinoa

(cooked for 5 mins)

1 Tbsp Chia Seeds

(soak for 10 mins)

1-2 cups Dried Fruit; Raisins Apricots, Goji Berries and Dates

 

  1. Mix all ingredients in a roasting pan. Roast at 150° Celsius for 15 minutes.

 

  1. Turn ingredients gently then place back in the oven for 15 minutes. Roast until golden brown and cool. Once cooled, add dried fruit.

 

  1. Keep in a sealed container. This toasted muesli will keep for a month.

 

Note from the chef:

‘This is a super-food breakfast. The combined ingredients provide great nutrition for the start of your day by including vitamin A, Vitamin E, selenium, fiber, protein and omega 3.”

Recipe by Lizzie Carson of

Vknow, Fernhill Queenstown, NZ.

 

Please click the download button below to print out a free copy of our newsletter.

 

 

Traditional Greek Salad - Physio Direct NZ

Traditional Greek Salad

Ingredients:

4 medium sized tomatoes

1 medium sized red onion

1 cucumber

200 g olives, stoned and quartered.

1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

3 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

200g feta cheese

1 Tbsp fresh basil

1 Tbsp fresh mint

 

  1. Chop tomatoes into small cubes. Slice the onion very finely and add to the tomatoes. Peel and chop cucumber into similar sized cubes as the tomatoes.
  2. Roughly chop the basil and mint, reserve two basil leaves for garnish. Gently mix into the rest along with the olives.
  3. Chop feta into 1cm cubes; add the rest of the salad ingredients along with the balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil. Toss together gently with your hands.
  4. To serve, garnish with basil leaves and drizzle with olive oil. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serves 4 as a side salad.

Please click the download button below to print out a free copy of our newsletter.

Focus on Lymphoedema - Physio Direct NZ

Focus on Lymphoedema

What is lymphoedema?

Lymph is a high-protein fluid in the body which flows between soft tissues.  Oedema is the scientific term for swelling. Lymphoedema, therefore, is a high-protein swelling resulting from fluid build-up in soft tissues, which then forms a solid mass.

How common is this condition?

The overall incidence of chronic lymphoedema is estimated at 0.13 to 2% worldwide.  There are two types: primary and secondary lymphedema.  The former occurs from birth; the latter can occur after surgery for removal of lymph nodes, after radiation therapy for the treatment of certain cancers or after parasitic infections.

What are the symptoms?

Symptoms of lymphoedema include heavy, tight and achy limbs, with swelling and decreased movement around the affected joints.  The skin in the area becomes hard and thickened.

What treatments are available?

Physiotherapy can be useful for the management of lymphoedema; techniques include laser therapy, therapeutic massage, compression garments, manual lymph drainage and specific exercises. Your physiotherapist is also able to assist with advice to help manage the condition.

How can you help yourself?

  • Educate yourself on the condition: look up as much information as you can in order to better inform yourself of what you can expect.

However, be wary of those selling products as their information may be biased. Unregulated industries also have less restrictions on what they are allowed to say or promise when promoting their products.

  • Look after the affected limb: make sure the skin is kept clean and dry, with breathable clothing and ventilation.
  • Get regular exercise: daily exerise is important to help maintain a healthy lifestyle.
  • Eat a well-balanced diet and maintain adequate hydration levels.
  • Surround yourself with people you are comfortable with.

 

Please click the download button below to print out a free copy of our newsletter.

If you require professional advice or treatment, please see our range of treatment options, or book an appointment online. Physio Direct has many clinics located throughout New Zealand, with no GP referral required to make an appointment.

How to Add Exercise to Your Cleaning Routine - Physio Direct NZ

How to Add Exercise to Your Cleaning Routine

As the warmer summer months beckon and time spent outdoors starts to increase, it’s the perfect excuse to de-clutter your surroundings, be it at home or at work. A clean environment helps to maintain a clear head, and the act of cleaning can be therapeutic in itself. Vigorous cleaning can burn up to 90 calories per fifteen minutes; that’s up to 360 calories per hour!

Vacuum cleaning, sweeping and mopping the floor raise the heart rate and can be incorporated into a cardiovascular workout. Lifting and moving heavy objects such as furniture can be incorporated into your strength training, while cleaning windows, hanging curtains and washing walls all have a stretching component. However, with vigorous cleaning comes the risk of over-exertion; necks and backs are particularly at risk of injury.

Make sure to maintain good alignment while doing all of these exercises in order to minimise your chances of injury.

Step-ups:

These are a great low-impact exercise to activate the gluteal muscles and core, and can be done while vacuuming the staircase. Keep your knees no further forward than your toes, and bend from the hips as you push up onto the standing leg by squeezing your backside muscles.

Squat twists:

Keep your knees bent and core engaged while you use your oblique muscles to rotate your body from the waist while mopping the floor.
Single-leg standing obliques: while washing the windows, engage the lateral abdominal muscles to pull the arms down to the side of the body as you balance on one leg.

Lunges:

Keep your back straight and front knee above your ankle while lunge walking as you sweep the floor. Try to lunge as low as possible while keeping a good technique.

Please click the download button below to print out a free copy of our newsletter.