What is it?

Pain in the sole of the foot can be caused by various issues, within and outside of the foot. Most commonly, pain on the sole of the foot is caused by plantar fasciopathy. That’s an ominous sounding condition, so let’s break down what those words actually mean.

• Plantar comes from the latin planta which means sole of the foot.
• Fasciopathy is made up of two words - fascia - which is latin for ‘band’ and pathy which comes from the latin for ‘suffering’.

 So, plantar fasciopathy is the suffering of the bands on the sole of the foot!

In the picture, you can see the plantar fascia - the thick connective tissue that supports the arch of the foot and helps absorb the impact from the...

What is it?

Greater trochanteric pain syndrome (GTPS) is a common complaint amongst our community. This is not surprising given that GTPS is estimated to affect 15% of women and 6.6% of men aged 50-70 years old. For those who have experienced it you already know which area hurts. For the rest of us, let’s break down those anatomical words!

The Greater Trochanter is the name for the “hip bone” - the part of your upper leg bone you can feel if you press into the side of your hip. For some people reading this, it might be uncomfortable to prod in that area, you may even have GTPS!

Run your eyes over the image above. This is an image of the muscles running around the back and side of your hip (and this is a simplified cartoon version!). As you can see, there are lots of different structures - muscles, tendons, bursae and various other tissues. It is for this reason that it is termed Greater Trochanteric Pain Syndrome - it’s virtually impossible to pinpoint...

When you’re standing in the shower and you gradually turn down the hot tap, it’s an unpleasant but tolerable experience. Contrast that to standing in a hot shower,  a family member turns a tap on somewhere else and the water goes cold instantly. Most would agree this is a very unpleasant experience. This is because the stress of the cold water is a shock to our body systems. Exercise is another form of stress - so it's important to discuss how to reduce the initial shock of starting exercise and perhaps what to do once exercise is finished. This blog is all about warming up and cooling down!

Warming Up

An adequate warm up leaves you feeling ready to exercise, increases your performance during exercise and reduces your risk of injury. Effective warm-ups include two important components: 

• General Activity

• Specific Preparation

General Activity consists of 5-10 minutes any low intensity exercise that serves to increase body temperature and heart rate....

Flexibility has long been considered an important component of physical fitness so stretching has become a staple of many exercise programs. Unfortunately, nearly all the benefits people think they are getting from stretching don’t hold up when held up to the scientific research. This blog will address some of these misconceptions about stretching and make recommendations about how better to spend the time you dedicate to exercise. 

1. Stretching to warm up:

a. The research has categorically shown that stretching is not effective as a pre-exercise warm up - this is because pulling on the muscles by stretching does not increase their temperature and it can actually reduce your ability to produce explosive power before a workout. The best way to warm up is to do a milder version of what you are about to do. For example if you are going to perform weighted squats in your workout, your warm up should include some shallow bodyweight squats to prepare you physically and...

Pelvic floor health issues are extremely common, particularly in the female population. Exercise is known to sometimes exacerbate the symptoms of pelvic floor dysfunction. Though on the other hand, exercise is crucial to good health. Unfortunately there is insufficient research in this area to make broad, definitive statements in regards to the connection between exercise and the pelvic floor. This blog will therefore provide an overview of the pelvic floor and make exercise recommendations based on our understanding of the current evidence.

 What is the Pelvic Floor?

The pelvic floor muscles lie at the base of the pelvis. The main roles of these muscles are support of the pelvic organs, bladder and bowel control and sexual function.

 What are Pelvic Floor Health Issues?

Females are much more likely to experience symptoms of pelvic floor problems, due to their anatomy and physiology. Some of the common experiences of pelvic floor issues are:

• Urinary...

This is one for the ladies (or the men that wish to understand the wonderful women in their lives a little better). Menopause. Some of you may be there and others may have this time ahead of you. 

Just because it has ‘pause’ in the name does not mean you have to physically pause areas of your life - particularly exercise. 

Menopause is defined as the cessation of menstruation for 12months. Menopause occurs when the ovaries stop making the hormones estrogen and progesterone. The average age of menopause onset is approximately 51 years old but some women may enter menopause as early as 30 or as late as their 60s. Every women’s experience is unique but some common symptoms include hot flushes, night sweats, vaginal dryness, insomnia, headache, lethargy/fatigue, irritability, anxiety, depression, feelings of a racing heart, weight gain, joint pain and decreased strength of connective tissue. The risk of diseases including heart disease and osteoporosis also...

“I’ll just do it tomorrow” – The most common sentence in isolation

Now just a disclaimer, it is a little bit ironic that I’m here to chat to you today about motivation and routine during lockdown but have subsequently sat here for the past 15min, unable to motivate myself to start this blog, scrolled through Instagram and Tik Tok about 50 times before getting out of bed this morning, and just made my third cup of coffee just to fill 5min.

COVID-19 has affected us all and been a major disruption to our usual schedule, business and lives. We have all now spent weeks in lockdown, working from home and have had limited access to outside and the things we enjoy doing. People are finding life difficult at the moment, and that is entirely normal. But how can we best manage this change in life and motivate ourselves to get things done (particularly exercise) during this time?

So why are we may be feeling less motivated during this time?

While we’re all...

No one can deny how good we feel after a night of uninterrupted, restful sleep. Now I am not someone who believes that this is attainable every night of our lives but I am someone who believes you should make good sleep a regular habit. That’s right, a habit. Sleep and a delicious chocolate cake are alike. They are both lovely to experience but in the same way a good cake takes preparation time, so does sleep.

Let me take you through five proven ways to enhance your quality and amount of sleep.

1. Expose yourself to sun, safely of course - Vitamin D is critical to the body’s mental and physical function and deficiency is a growing problem for older adults. Much of our Vitamin D is produced in our body when we are exposed to sunlight and lower levels of Vitamin D have been shown to reduce sleep quality and duration, leading to lower mood levels. Therefore getting out in the direct sunlight for 5-15 minutes per day can be sufficient, trying to avoid the hottest, high UV...

Why do people stop floor play and why is nobody speaking about it?

Is it taking you longer to get up after you have gone down to the ground?

If so then you should read this article and implement some more floor play into your life.

More specifically I am talking about the ability to get down and up from the ground and move around the floor more easily. As people get older they tend to stop going down to the ground as often and like any other skill, if you don’t use it you lose it. Avoiding certain movements because they are uncomfortable leads to a negative cycle. The less we do it, the worse we become at it. It starts to become harder and more uncomfortable to get off the ground and slowly leads to a decline where you are no longer able to get up from the ground independently.

Why is getting down and up from the ground so important?

The ability to get down and up from the floor is a necessary skill for full functional independence. Imagine dropping your book underneath the...

Stress is the body’s way of responding to demand on pressures.

It’s a normal part of life and is a healthy reaction that helps us cope with life’s challenges. However, too much stress, or prolonged stress can affect our physical and mental health.

Cortisol is a hormone, which is mainly released at times of stress and has many important functions in your body such as increasing glucose metabolism, controlling blood pressure and inflammation. Cortisol is also required for the fight or flight response which is a healthy, natural response to perceived threats. However, as I mentioned above, health problems can arise if you are producing too much or too little cortisol.

A prolonged period of increased cortisol can lead to the body inhibiting osteoblasts - a type of bone cell that connect together to help build bone. This can lead to the body ending up with more broken down tissue than deposited tissue, causing low bone density and eventually osteoporosis.

So if you...