Virgil van Dijk sustained one of the most unfortunate injuries a professional footballer can suffer when he ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) recently. Only a matter of days after the injury van Dijk vowed to “come back stronger”. This clichéd phrase may have just been a PR message for the media and not the true belief of the player, but it may also be that Virgil really does believe that he will return stronger. The attitude displayed by van Dijk is a classic one amongst athletes at the early stages of their rehabilitation. They take to this new injury...
Some can view sport as a question of make-it or break-it. But questionable training cultures and concerns around toxic training environments have been under the spotlight in recent times. The Nike Oregon project and British Cycling, to name two of the more high-profile cases, have been rocked by accusations of a culture of bullying, shady practices and medical mismanagement (https://www.bbc.com/sport/athletics/51599747). These accusations often centre around dominant, didactic coaches. Some athletes have now broken their silence and given their perspectives on the culture inside these highly successful teams. Are these isolated cases? Doubtful. But what is it about the culture of...
We all have tinted lenses. We see the world through these lenses. These lenses influence our decisions every day. Every day we all need to make decisions about our health. We need to base these decisions on something. Decisions like what to eat, how much exercise to do, how much work to do, how much sleep is good, how much alcohol is healthy or at least non-detrimental? To answer such questions, we often find that the most attractive solutions are the ones that align with what we value. If we value our health then we look for ways that we...
Cheating is bad, clean athletes are good, end of argument. You must know us better by now?! But what does really constitute cheating in sport? There was a time when training would be considered cheating. Athletic pursuits were thought of as a way to pit natural talents against each other and ‘artificial’ enhancement through training was frowned upon. No one today would consider training cheating. However, other methods of bending the rules or enhancing performance certainly are. There have been a number of high-profile cases regarding coaches and the culture they have generated that facilitates cheating or at the very...
To help understand modern medicine and medical thinking today, it can be insightful to consider medicine’s history. Summarising a long and complex history into one blog isn’t really possible, but can we look at a few important historical factors that are influential in today’s modern medical understanding. We can start around the renaissance period. This period marked the resurgence of Greek and Roman philosophy and thinking. Religious beliefs were in decline and growth occurred in the interest in observation, logic and measurement. Everything around us could be categorised, analysed and explained. This move led to great advances in the understanding...
Toughness: Being tough, fighting and battling for the team are often central parts of sporting cultures. But what does it really entail and why is it considered important? People often label footballers as ‘soft’ for rolling around on the floor, or screaming after impact in a match. Although it is fairly clear that the footballers are behaving in this way with the aim of manipulating the referring team rather than due to the amount of pain they have. Such behaviour has become socially acceptable in football and it is part of the tactics of the game. However, such behaviour wouldn’t...
Online medical help is it supplementary, central, critical or damaging? I appreciate there is some irony in writing a blog about the pitfalls or benefits of online medical help. But I can add that I am a physiotherapist with 10 years clinical experience and a MSc post-graduate education in physiotherapy. It is up to you to decide the value of what is written and hopefully this post will give you some idea of whether or not you should trust these words. A Facebook post that I once saw demonstrates some of the pitfalls with getting online medical help. The post...
The New Year is here, at the start of 2019 the days are already getting longer, we can look to the future again. Not uncommonly, after Christmas and New Year binges, we can look forward with the aim of improving our health. It is renowned that New Year’s resolutions fail. But why is it often so hard to make changes stick? It is tempting to think we are responsible for all our decisions, for every nuance of our health. It is tempting to think the same of others. But why, in an era of universal education where almost everyone knows...
You might have noticed that there are a lot of health trends and fads around, a lot of gurus and people with new books. It is claimed that this new way-of-life/diet/gadget/exercise will revolutionise your health and make you feel great! The existence of these trends doesn’t seem so strange; they aren’t so new; there have been many different diets and curious health methods around for a long time. Remember the watercress soup diet? Pilates craze? The electrical abdominal contractor? What about blood-letting (a slightly older craze)? I am sure you can come up with many more. These fads, trends, fashions...
Why is it that an individual would chose to partake in sport, in full knowledge that the process could lead to injuries that could have serious consequences for their wellbeing, or at worst give them lifelong issues such as brain damage or persistent pain? Can culture hold the key? When put like that it seems strange that so many people do partake in sports that contain high risks, and the same people return to such sports frequently after significant injuries. We have discussed before the lack of perspective that many athletes may need to have in order to pursue their...
