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Where do we draw the line in sports medicine?

What can sports medicine really achieve and just as importantly what should it be aiming to achieve? This may seem like a simple question, but the answer has a myriad of competing influences. Should sports medicine be aimed at merely optimising the sports person’s health? Should it try to improve their performance? Perhaps prevent them from getting problems? How much to intervene and what to leave to nature is a common dilemma in physiotherapy and medicine. The shades of grey are no less opaque in sports. The history of sport includes many unsavoury events where clinicians have intervened too greatly...

Is sporting equality progressing?

To look at sport today and compare it to sport from, for example, 30 years ago you would say sporting equality is better now. There have been some recent high profile comments about women’s tennis that would suggest there are still some old fashioned views lurking. Clearly progress has been made in increasing the exposure and professionalism of women’s sport. Prize money for women’s tennis is nearing that of men’s, although less so in the lower ranking events, England has a fully professional cricket team and premier league football clubs are increasing the funding and investment of their women’s teams....

Is team training best done as individuals?

The concept of training as a team leans itself to everyone attending and performing the same programme. This means that everyone will see the benefit of the team effort correct? Well perhaps not. Team performance depends on individuals performing at their best as well as complimenting each other. Depending on the sport the importance of individual versus team priority will be varied. Clearly the importance of team discipline and coordination is far more important in Rugby union’s defensive line than it is in cricket, when the individual batting or bowling is most important in the team outcome. Why might team...

Does massage help with pain?

Does massage help with pain? Massage has been a part of treating ailments and pain for many years, numerous different types of massage have been coined over the years, including names like soft tissue manipulation, myofascial release techniques and sports massage, to name a few, but do they work? Why does it work? Considering massage can be painful to experience why do we utilise in for treating painful areas and restricted movement? The benefits of massage in physiotherapy practice appear to be numerous. If an area of the body is painful we believe it is due to the body trying...

What makes the best sports people better than everyone else?

It is often said that to be the very best in sport it is in the mind that separates the winners from the next in line, but is that really true? Why does Novak Djokovic keep winning? How is it that no one can beat Usain Bolt? What really makes them the best sports people? I do not wish to assert that any top athlete lacks strength of character and toughness of mind- no doubt they have these traits. To work through the demanding schedules, the rigorous and limiting nutritious and recovery regimes plus hold it together when their most...

Running Injuries

With the London Marathon fast approaching many of us are well into our official training schedules, me included. It is not uncommon to see people competing in the marathon in our physiotherapy clinic with various lower limb injuries. Most running injuries are related to the increased repetitive loads placed on the muscular system, resulting in tendinopathy (a broad term used for tendon pain). You might have heard these problems given other names depending on where they are felt, some of these include: trochanteric bursitis / gluteus medius tendinopathy (outer hip), Achilles tendinopathy / tendonitis, plantar fasciitis (bottom of foot/ heel...

Why does it hurt?

Pain is all about PROTECTION! Pain is a fundamental part of everyone’s existence. It is an amazing and interesting system in the body. It can be torturous, attention seeking and sometimes rewarding. Athletes often clarify their efforts by the amount of pain they have been able to cause themselves! The body produces pain to protect us from harm (Moseley, 2015). Gone are the days of Rene Descartes when we believed the brain and body reacted directly to triggers in the outer part of the body. Pain has been found to be much more complicated than a simple relaying system. When...

Where do we draw the line in sports medicine?

Is sporting equality progressing?

Is team training best done as individuals?

Does massage help with pain?

What makes the best sports people better than everyone else?

Running Injuries

Why does it hurt?

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