Sprained ankle on the tennis court? Think TWICE before grabbing the ICE

If you sprain your ankle on the tennis court, the first port of call is usually the clubhouse freezer. But is ice actually doing you more harm than good?

R.I.C.E. (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) has been the most common initial treatment of acute injury over the last 30 years, as introduced by Dr. Gabe Mirkin in his 1978 publication The Sports Medicine Book. A recent study by the American Journal of Sports Medicine (June 2013), however, has made Dr. Mirkin swallow a slice of frozen humble pie. The study demonstrated no evidence that ice hastened recovery, leading Dr. Mirkin in his 2014 article “Why Ice Delays Recovery” to admit that he was wrong.

So, why is ice not always the best solution?

Firstly, it is worth noting that the inflammatory process is vital for the repair and remodelling of tissues. Common sense would suggest that inhibiting this process may not be the best idea. Ice acts to constrict blood vessels thereby reducing the amount of inflammatory cells deposited by your blood stream.

Although this may reduce pain and pressure on an injury, it also stops healing cells from entering injured tissue. Ice, as well as constricting blood vessels, also constricts the lymphatic system which is responsible for clearing out inflammatory debris. So, you can begin to get a picture of the effect ice has on an injury; less healing cells and a reduced ability to remove inflammatory waste – not ideal for recovery.

So, what should you do?

Here are Dr. Mirkin’s new set of tips for acute injury treatment:

1. Stop exercising immediately; you don’t want to cause further damage.

2. If the injury is very painful, then cold has been shown to reduce pain, in these circumstances you can grab a bag of peas from the freezer but use intermittently – 10 minutes on, 20 minutes off.

3. As soon as possible, get yourself assessed by a health professional to ensure no serious damage has been done.

4. After 48-72 hours the inflammatory process will usually have done its job, movement and the correct exercises then become the order of the day.

5. Joint pumping is a fantastic way of naturally assisting the lymphatic system to remove excess waste, while the correct movements will stimulate tissue repair.

If you are suffering from an injury and need to have it treated, just call the clinic to book an appointment with me.

Neil Sharland
Osteopath M.Ost

ACUPUNCTURE – THE ONLY RECOMMENDED PROPHYLACTIC TREATMENT FOR HEADACHE

Suffering with a headache is unnecessary…

“Headache has been underestimated, under-recognised and under-treated throughout the world” WHO

Headache disorders are among the most common disorder of the nervous system. Nearly 50% of us have suffered from a headache in the last year and nearly 10% of those have reported migraine. Up to 4% of the worlds adult population suffer with headaches on 15 or more days a month.

Not only is headache painful, but it is also disabling.

Acupuncture for headaches…

Research has shown that a course of acupuncture can reduce symptoms of headaches by more than 50% and in some people acupuncture has been reported to eliminate their symptoms altogether!!

Following this research the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) passed a Guideline for Headaches, CG15 in September 2012 declaring a course of up to 10 sessions of acupuncture over 5-8 weeks as the ONLY recommended prophylactic treatment that isn’t drugs.

There are many types of headaches, some chronic and some episodic. Like with any other aches and pain the longevity of symptoms can act as a general guide of how many treatments you may need to help with your headache management. The more acute headache sufferer may only need 1-2 treatments, but for the more chronic and long-term sufferers, more treatments will be necessary. What is clear is that acupuncture is very likely to help with fighting your headache.

What to do next?

Start by keeping a headache diary today – record the frequency, duration and severity of the headache. Contact us if you would like a simple spreadsheet to follow.

If you are suffering with headaches, call the clinic to book an appointment in with me.

Anja Davidson
Osteopath M.Ost

Functional Exercise and Training – The Why and the What!

Tri-Plane Movement and Functional Training, these are both current words used to describe movement and training by the personal training and allied health professions (osteopath, physiotherapist, exercise physiologist and chiropractor). The health and fitness industry is going through yet another change, just like the swiss ball was the man of the moment in the 90′s, pilates and the core were the trend of the early 2000′s, many trainers and health professionals are now focusing on training movement rather than muscle, training functional exercises rather than non functional exercises, training groups of muscles rather than muscles in isolation.

What this means in simplistic terms is that trainers and health professionals etc are now moving away from the body building approach to training and conditioning (that is isolated weight training) and moving towards training that integrates movement with resistance that mimics upright function such as gait and other movement patterns that we perform on a daily basis i.e. squat, sit to stand, step up and down, push, pull & rotate. Trying to use gravity as the driver by doing exercise on your feet or upright, rather than on your back or in a machine stimulates your proprioception much more effectively than fixing an area, therefore creating the correct chain reaction needed for full and appropriate muscle function.

This does not suggest that one training approach or philosophy is better than the other, it fundamentally comes down to what the specific individuals goal is. For a body builder looking to compete, then traditional weight lifting techniques that have been proven to produce muscle gain is required. For the olympic power lifter, olympic lifts are practiced. For the sporting indivdiual, there will be likely a combination of functional movement exercises as well as some strength, olympic and powerlifting techniques. For the individual wanting to improve their overall wellbeing, strength and mobility, there is also likely to be a combination of the above.

So what does Tri-plane movement, functional training etc etc mean. Tri-Plane movement simply refers to movement in the three planes (sagittal, frontal and transverse planes). If we look at the individual who is standing upright, the best way to describe movement in the sagittal plane is forwards and backwards movement. Movement in the the frontal plane refers to side to side movement (that is laterally stepping or performing a lateral lunge). Movement in the the transverse plane is when movement occurs with rotation. That is, whilst standing you twist and turn to move or lunge backwards and laterally. Everyday movement occurs in all three planes at a bone and joint level and this is why there is this growing change in the way that training is being carried out. Previously most gyms and training programs were focused on training muscles in machines and/or functional training was restricted to movement purely up and down i.e squat movement or forwards (anterior lunge). As our understanding of functional biomechanics and movement improves, so does our training approaches and philosophy. Now days we are seeing more and more clients perform movements that involve all three planes of movement, involving less equipment and with movements that mimic real life activity.

Functional Training is probably one of the biggest buzz words in the health and fitness industry at this particular moment. There are many indivdiuals out there claiming to provide functional training. Functional training is certaintly not something that is new, rather it has been around for many many years and simply relates to training that mimics how we function. How this training relates to how we function will depend totally upon what and why we are training. For an individual who sits for their job for their entire life and wants to improve this, then training should focus on improving their ability to sit whilst working. For those individuals who are wanting to improve their everyday movement, that is sit, stand, walk, step up and down, squat, lunge etc etc, then training should reflect this. For the sporting individual, the training should mimic the sporting requirements, movements or athletic components that are that sport. So functional training has many meanings and therefore can be interpreted in many different ways.

For the general public, when we look at the body and how it functions, the most common movements or positions we are in involve walking (gait), sitting, standing, squatting, lunging, stepping up and down, single leg balancing, pushing, pulling and twisting. All of these movements are impacted by gravity and ground reaction force and these are two other factors that should be taken into consideration when prescribing a program. Gravity is something that we are always working against to remain upright. Therefore gravity is something that can easily be used to increase or decrease the degree of difficulty of an exercise. Ground reaction force relates to Newton’s laws and how force in one direction results in an equal and opposite amount of force in the opposite direction. This can be related to jumping and landing on the ground whereby an amount of force is exerted downwards and then the force will be transferred back into the legs and must be either shifted or absorbed by the body. So when it comes to functional training and tri-plane movement training, hopefully now you will have a little bit more of an understanding of what, why and how this might be prescribed in relation to yours or anyone else’s training program.

In our opinion, functional exercise should be used more and more when rehabilitating injuries or with patients post surgery. The more you get patient’s bodies working proprioceptively and in 3 planes, their bodies can start to ‘switch on’ to allow them to recover better and stronger.

To find out more about changing your training program, making it a little bit more functional in relation to your specific goals, incorporating exercises that involve training in all three planes, then contact Back to Back – The Earlsfield Osteopath on 020 8605 2323 or click here