Gardening Tips for Spring

Gardening can be a form of exercise. Doing basic gardening tasks such as weeding, trimming

and raking can burn up to 300 calories an hour. It’s a good way to maintain flexibility and range of motion in your shoulders, hips and back, as well as building strength and endurance. Avoid pain and injury by starting with planned shortened sessions and gradually increase activities.

USE PROPER BODY MECHANICS
When digging or raking, make sure your neck and back are fairly straight, and you’re not holding a position where you’re rounding forward—be upright, and use your legs to move around, not reaching over with your arms! Always bend from the hip joint to keep your back straight, and not from the waist.  When lifting, try to “hinge” from the hips and use your legs.

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4 Reasons to Try Yoga When You Are Recovering From Pain

As a Physiotherapist, I see people who have pain.  Together we work on strategies to help that pain and get to the root of the problem, and often for a period of time I will ask people to limit certain activities, but the big picture is to get someone back to full function and have no limitations.  Once people are on the road to recovery, then often yoga can be beneficial as part of the solution! Here are 4 reasons to start yoga when you’re recovering from an injury:

  1. Here’s the thing: all yoga is not the same.  It is important to look at your specific movement and breathing patterns, and develop a yoga series that is unique and helpful for you and your issue.  We typically start small and slow by focusing on one joint and one movement at a time, as small and slow movements are more open for awareness building, easier for the nervous system to learn, and progress occurs more quickly. You will be surprised how small movements can release tension. As we progress, we may increase the number of joints involved, number of reps and speed. We may also transition from sitting or lying down movements to more standing movements to build stability and strength.
  2. There is a sense of safety: When the nervous system is responding to stress, your breath can be shallow, muscles tighten, the digestive system and sleep get thrown off. Pain and anxiety can exacerbate the stress response. Yoga can help to down-train the nervous system and encourage further healing of the issue with breath, movement and calm.
  3. It helps you listen to your body. As you get to know the cues your body is giving you, you can learn a better connection with your body and can help take control of your own self-care.
  4. Any movement is therapy when done with ease. Yoga can help you become more aware of how you move. You can work on easy vs. tight breathing, and ease of movement vs. force.  Awareness is the key to shifting the movement and breathing habits that can contribute to symptoms. With awareness, symptoms can change.

How do I start?  At Elevation Physiotherapy, we work closely with a trained yoga instructor to develop a program that can be a part of your own injury recovery.  Speak with your Physiotherapist to see if yoga sessions could be helpful for you.  If you are continuing with Physiotherapy, it is possible that your yoga session(s) could be covered under your Physiotherapy benefits.

Your Journey to a Better Back: Part 5- Back strengthening exercises

Once you’re feeling better and don’t have particular pain, you can try these two exercises that target the deep back muscles.  They shouldn’t be painful, but rather just challenging for your muscles to do several repetitions or hold for awhile.  If either exercise is creating pain, check with your Physiotherapist to make sure they are appropriate exercises for you!  Enjoy!

Your Journey to a Better Back: Part 4- Your back muscles are not that weak

It is surprising to many people to learn that your back muscles are likely not the cause or driver behind back pain.  Your brain recognizes that pain is not normal and can go into “protective” mode and the muscles can spasm or not work normally as a result, but they are not often the cause of the issue.  Check out this video below to explain more:

Your Journey to a Better Back: Part 3- The “Sloppy” Push Up

We all know that there isn’t likely one movement or exercise that is appropriate for everyone, but the “sloppy” push up can be helpful for many people.  People tend to sit slouched and spend WAY too much time with their spine rounded forward, so this is a nice movement to get out of that, and nothing you happen to do in your day puts your back near there unless you make a point of it!

Remember, the “sloppy” push up should not be painful.  If it is, it’s best to consult with your Physiotherapist to see if this exercise is appropriate for you at the moment.

 

The 5 Essentials of Healthy Desk Work

  1. Sitting posture is key! We all know it’s not a great thing for the body to sit for many hours every day, so at least have most of that time with minimal stressors on your body.  Sit with a supplemental lumbar support so that your spine can easily maintain the natural inward curve in the lower back that is present when you stand.  When you correct from the bottom, it helps to align everything higher up.  More than that, keep moving around in your chair—rock your pelvis forward and back or side to side every now and then—just keep things moving a bit.  
  2. Breathing is underrated! If you’re sitting in a slouched posture for long, you aren’t able to take in a maximal breath to expand your lower lungs.  Not cool.  As soon as you sit up straighter, it allows the lowest part of your lungs to expand fully when you take a deep breath—this is important to bring oxygen to tissues, calm your nervous system, and help blood flow.
  3. Your desk set-up is important: the ergonomic design of your work station should keep your head neutral looking straight ahead, your shoulders relaxed so that your elbows are bent to ~90 degrees and you can still reach the keyboard and mouse, and your chair height allows your knees to be at or below the height of your hips.
  4. Move your body: sitting properly is WAY better than not, but it’s still not great to stay there for hours on end.  Move! Strategize to stand and move around your area when you take a phone call, or schedule a walking meeting, or drink enough water that you regularly have to get up to use the bathroom!
  5. Drink enough water: ideally we want about 8-12 cups of fluid per day in order to replenish our body’s store of fluids. These fluids help with all bodily functions:  blood regulation, digestion, breathing, muscle and joint function, and brain activity. Keep it in you!

If you’re not sure about your desk ergonomic set-up or how to use a lumbar roll to sit, speak with your physiotherapist, or check out an earlier post here

 

Say “Yes” to Exercise for Back Pain

An interesting article where I both wholeheartedly agree and don’t agree: the researchers report that “the best form of exercise is the one that you are going to stick with”. Exercise in the form of general movement is generally fantastic, but often there are specific directions/ movements that could actually help repair the problem– read more 

If this interests you, you will find the blog from July to be a great read.

View original article:  www.scientificamerican.com

 

Exercise after baby… what’s changed?

Life is so different after a baby!  Not just with having a new addition to your family, but now it’s not only about you anymore.  But it’s still somewhat about you… that’s what so many Moms forget.  You have to be good to yourself, and you have to get back to your best, fullest you!

When you’re looking to start back to exercise, whether it’s something you’re looking to return to after giving birth or it’s some new activity, you have to remember that your body is different now. Continue reading

What 4 Things to do FIRST When Back Pain Begins

  1. Stop trying to figure out WHY and just get on with it!

Of course, pain is not normal– it’s your body telling you that something is going on. You do need to pay some attention. Most of the time back pain begins for no obvious reason– you could just wake up with it, or some harmless movement like bending forward to pick something up starts a sudden pain. When this happens, it’s scary. It’s also human nature to wonder what the heck happened, and you can wrack your brain to try to figure it out, but most of the time you won’t know for sure. Most commonly it is cumulative stressors to your back that creates the problem– it finally just has enough, then you’ll do something innocuous– like wash your foot, and you can’t get up. Try to keep moving as best as you can.

  1. How much are you sitting? HOW are you sitting?

It has been shown that people who have desk jobs have more of a risk of back pain than construction workers. Sitting is hard for your back, and your body is meant to move. In life, many people spend WAY too much time sitting– not just at the computer, but traveling to and from work or school, sitting to eat all of your meals, and all entertainment (TV, out for dinner or a pub, reading)– all sitting!

If you’ve been sitting in any chair for awhile, odds are you’re relaxed into it and assumed a slouching position. This slumped posture is the same thing as being fully bent forward as far as your back goes. Fully. Forward. Evidence shows this is a position of vulnerability for your back, and how much do you do it? Every day, likely for long periods. For details on correcting your sitting posture, refer to the post on proper sitting posture.

  1. WHERE is the pain?

Does your back pain stay local, or do you feel something in your butt? Your leg? Is it all on one side or is it both? Does it come and go, or is it truly always there? All important questions you need to assess. If you’re feeling pain away from your back into your butt or lower, that pain is likely referred from your back itself. Even if your leg hurts more than your back, it’s very common that the source of this pain is coming from your back. Location, location, location. It’s the radiating leg pain that you want to address first, and start looking at different back positions to see if any can help the pain.

  1. WHAT happens when you lie on your stomach?

This can be a weird movement for some, and many people never spend time in this position. Lying down on your stomach keeps you not weight-bearing through your back, and has your spine in a fairly neutral position. Try to be here for a few minutes, and just see if any back, buttock or leg pain starts to settle down. This is a positive sign when that happens, but don’t worry if you don’t notice any change.

The most efficient thing to do from here is get to your Physiotherapist or Chiropractor. This person should be asking you the above questions, and you can easily give them this information– this will help form an individualized program that will help you settle this pain quickly, then work to prevent this from happening again!