There are many benefits to doing sports and physical activity and more and more people are getting into it. Be it cardio, lifting, competitive sports, almost anyone who exercises on a regular basis will develop an ache, pain or sports injury at some time or another.

Different types of sports are predisposed to certain types of injuries because of the mechanics of the movement and the repetitive strain in certain movements.

Sports injuries result from acute trauma or repetitive stress associated with athletic activities. Sports injuries can affect bones or soft tissue (ligaments, muscles, tendons n nerves).

These Injuries can be classed as chronic or acute.

Understanding the mechanics of the body is important to know what are the optimum positions for the body to function in and the consequences if these positions are not followed through in sports and exercise.

Acute injury is due to an impact from a direct force by collision, being hit by an object or fall and if the injury is less than 2 weeks old. E.g. Sprains/strains, fractures, dislocations, hamstring tears, ACL tears.

Strained (pulled) muscles result from muscles being suddenly and forcefully overstretched.

This tears the muscle fibres, usually where they attach to the tendon. The muscle is painful and its strength is reduced.

Bruises and strains should be treated with ice to reduce the swelling

Sprains are different to strains – they involve ligaments rather than muscles and tendons.

Sprained/ twisted ankle Sprains occur when ligaments at joints get stretched and torn. A sharp twist of the foot can give you a sprained or twisted ankle. Severe sprains result in torn ligaments.

Sprains are more serious than strains, and result in considerable pain and loss of function at the joint. The symptoms are similar to a fracture or dislocation.

Sprains should be treated with ice and rest.

Chronic injury represents Tendonitis, joint instabilities, strained muscles and is generally a pain which has lasted more than 6 weeks and is caused by:

• Overuse or repetitive stress of muscles
• instability
• Insufficient warm-up with lack of stretching and conditioning
• training too hard

• not allowing time for recovery
• Improper sport gears or footwear
• bad sporting technique

Common chronic sports injuries are: Tennis elbow, golfer’s elbow, carpel tunnel syndrome, shin splints, general muscle ache/tightness.

Golf and tennis put a lot of strain on the elbow. In golf and tennis elbow, the tendons that attach muscles to the elbow joint become inflamed, sore and painful.

These injuries should be treated by applying an icepack and resting for several weeks.

Physiotherapy treatment will be helpful to relieve the pain

Shin splints are pains in the lower leg, caused by continuous stress over a long period of time.

Either the tendons around the tibia become inflamed, or ‘stress fractures’ develop – these are cracks along the length of the bone.

Shin splints should be treated with ice and plenty of rest. Cushioned footwear and special insoles or orthotics and strengthening exercises can help to prevent the injury returning.

General Tips to prevent injuries during sports:

• Overuse of muscles or muscle weakness/imbalance. – Ensure your exercise program exercises all the major muscle groups working both the agonist and antagonist muscles.
• Poor training methods – When starting a new exercise regime always seek advice from a trained professional in that field.
• Postural defects– Hyper mobility puts you at increased risk of injury, consider leg length differences, scoliosis etc. 
• Improper training equipment – Choose the right weight and number of repetitions for your ability.
• Level of fitness/aging- Take in to consideration what you can realistically achieve.
• An ideal posture –is when your joints sit and are worked in a neutral position. Poor alignment may result in frequent injuries. To train muscles most effectively you need the joints to be in their optimum alignment.

As experienced physiotherapists with sports injuries we believe:

PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE

Effective planning with your physiotherapist at Physio Asia:

• Commences immediately following injury
• Integrate pain relief for sports injuriesand activities accordingly
• Stages – initial, intermediate, advanced and return to sport
• Look for and correct any biomechanical abnormalities

Physiotherapist will advise you on:

• Warm up
• Stretching
• Taping and Bracing
• Protective Equipment
• Suitable Equipment
• Environmental factors
• Appropriate Training
• Nutrition

Sports injuries

Do you exercise regularly but find yourself sustaining injuries, aches and pains with your daily activities or sometimes even after your workout?

Injuries can push us back in our fitness journey progression. However, they can also be indicative of an existing problem or an absence in our exercise routine.

Here are some reasons why you might be getting injured even though you keep fit and exercise regularly.

1. Lack of warm up and cool down

It is not uncommon to hear recounts from patients telling me that they go for 5km runs or go to the gym after they get off from work. Diving straight in to your work outs and exercises after sitting at your desk the whole day is a precursor of an injury or strain just waiting to happen.

Sitting for long hours causes our muscles to get shortened and stiff. Warm ups help to increase the circulation to our muscles and warms it up, making them more elastic and ready for them to work more efficiently which helps to prevent injuries.

A proper warm up only takes about 10-20mins. You can start off with a slow 5-10min walk, jog or cycle, followed by a series of dynamic stretching exercises to get your joints mobile and well stretched out for the exercise ahead. Performing static stretches BEFORE your physical activity can actually cause reduction in muscle strength as your muscles are not yet warmed up to be stretched to its limits and can potentially cause injuries.

Static stretching is best for AFTER your work outs when you are COOLING DOWN. At this stage, your muscles have been contracting and are coursing with warm blood and nutrients. Static stretching helps to lengthen your muscles and restores them back to its natural length and speeds up recovery time. If this step is skipped, your muscles can remain in that shortened contracted length, resulting in tightness and pulling on other structures in your body, changing the biomechanical alignment of your body. Hence the importance of cooling down is as important and vital as warming up before your work outs for injury prevention

2. Muscle Imbalances

No one has the perfect body, but it becomes an issue and a precursor to injuries when there are distinct muscle imbalances in your body.

A left to right muscle imbalance can be easily identified. Usually our dominant hand or leg will be slightly stronger and we might be weaker and tighter on the other side. These imbalances will cause our bodies and joints to take on different stresses during exercises. This can result in one sided pains/injuries initially. If we don’t correct this imbalance, the joints in your body would continue to take on more stress and be prone to repetitive wear and tear and injury.

Other kinds of imbalances involve global muscles and stabilizers. Global muscles are larger muscle groups which produce a greater force but fatigue easily, whereas stabilizers do not produce great force but are enduring muscles. When our stabilizers are weak, our global muscles tighten up to compensate for the lack of the ability to contract over a long period of time. As mentioned earlier, tight muscles are a precursor for injuries. Therefore, with these kind of imbalances, it is important to consult a physiotherapist that can get you on the right track to strengthening your stabilizers and releasing those tight global muscles.

3. Poor Form

Poor form can be a result of muscle imbalances, poor body awareness, or the lack of knowledge on the exercise you are doing. Performing the exercises with a poor form will most definitely lead up to an injury. Talking more on biomechanical alignments, our weight distributes and our joints are built to take on weights. However, when you perform exercises in a poor form it leads to a change in your biomechanical alignment and force distribution in your body. This causes increased stress and strain on different joints and muscles groups which will result in sprains, tears and degeneration over a period of time.

Thus, it is important to get yourself educated with the knowledge on performing your exercises correctly. Be it walking, running, squats or lifting weights, a physiotherapist can advise and equip you with knowledge and the technical skills you need to prevent such injuries when you exercise.

Now that you know what are the common causes that leads up to an injury even though you exercise regularly, be sure to make these corrections as soon as you can and seek help to prevent yourself from getting hurt!

Rane Ng

Physiotherapist

Physio Asia Therapy Centre

Blocked breast ducts are not only an inconvenience, as they can dramatically slow down the flow of your breast milk, but they can be incredibly painful as well. The cause of blocked ducts is plentiful, however a few of the main causes maybe and are not limited to:

1. A poor latch of your baby on the breast and hence poor emptying of your breast
2. Excessively thick / fatty milk constituency
3. Inexperience with the various positions of breast feeding -may lead to poor latching
4. Fatigue of the mother
5. Low hydration and poor supply of milk
6. Over supply of milk

Physiotherapy working in conduction with a good Breast Lactation Consultant, may assist in successfully clearing blocked reast ducts. A noninvasive physiotherapy modality such as Ultrasound is often a key to successfully clearing blocked ducts.

Therapeutic ultrasound uses sound waves to create a ripple effect that passes through the breast tissue and ducts and hence clear the blockage in the blocked milk ducts.

Ultrasound is painless, and affective. Depending on the extent of the blockage of the breast duct, Treatment sessions may need needs to be 30 – 45 minutes in duration and may need to be applied over 1-3 sessions to clear the blocked ducts. Treatment sessions are most affective when applied daily or 1 day apart.

Often a combination of the ultrasound treatment plus soft tissue massage, rest, and good hydration, support good milk flow. Please address block ducts sooner rather than later to avoid further complications such as Mastitis. Mastitis can be very painful and make a new mum feel very unwell.

The signs of Mastitis are:

1. Pain in the breast or at the blocked duct or arm pit
2. Redness around or near the blocked breast duct
3. Heat of the breast or blocked area
4. You may feel unwell with flu like symptoms and or a fever that arises suddenly
5. Milk flow slows down or stops
6. If you have any signs of Mastitis please ask your General Practitioners (GP) advise as soon as you notice any of the above signs and start antibiotics immediately.

Ultrasound may then be applied to your breast 1 – 3 days after you start your antibiotic treatment.

Happy Breast-Feeding Ladies!

Decompression Therapy for Spine is your answer for non-surgical relief of lower back pain, sciatica, pinched nerve, neck pain and degenerated / herniated disc disease. With specific targeting for spinal levels, separate lumbar and cervical decompression programming, it is highly effective treatment for Back and Neck Pain.

This type of decompression can be done in different positions including one side bending or rotated position to achieve maximum corrective pulls.

The different patterns of pull are designed to facilitate Anti-inflammatory effect for healing, Decompressive effect on disc and reducing pressure on the compressed nerve and Spinal mobilization effect for reducing stiffness.

How does it work?

Decompression Therapy for Spine is performed on a specially designed table in either a face up or face down position. You are fitted with a harness attached to the computer controlled traction which is programmed to deliver a gentle stretching force to the spinal vertebra.

Vacuum or pumping effect

Stretching and relaxing the spine in a controlled manner causes a pumping action that helps to resupply the disc with nutrients and blood to help the disc heal (often lost in damaged and degenerative disc conditions). Thus creating negative pressure in the disc (decompression) that can help the drawing in of a bulge and help take pressure off a “pinched” spinal nerve. This will also help to mobilize the stiff spine.

What other treatment is involved in addition to Spinal Decompression?

In addition, it may include any of the following therapies as indicated by your condition: – electrical stimulation, ultrasound therapy, short wave diathermy, cold laser therapy, spinal mobilization and active exercises. 

Core muscle strengthening (SCORES)

We also need to focus on rehabilitating the structures supporting the disc in order to keep the pain from returning. Improving spine flexibility and muscle control is vital for spinal health.

A program of focused rehabilitative exercise with Stabilizer Pressure Biofeedback may begin during or after your Decompression Therapy. Through a series of specific controlled exercise techniques (often targeting the deep abdominal muscles) the Biofeedback monitors n Real time ultrasound for the correctness and effectiveness of your exercise performance by providing you continual visual feedback.

Long term pain relief

Post treatment you will be taught a home-based exercise program that will help to bring your spine back to full health. This exercise program may include postural advice, resistance training, Stabilizer/ Exercise ball /other “core” exercises.

How often do I take the treatment? 

It depends on the complexity and extent of rehabilitation needed. Decompression is usually performed 2-3 times a week for 5-12 sessions and your response is continually evaluated and change in frequency may be recommended accordingly.

If you suffer from chronic, debilitating, low back or neck pain, our physiotherapy practice is dedicated to offering the latest and state-of-the-art therapy, call us today to make an appointment.

For Further details on Decompression Therapy, please call us at 67364142.