Have you ever had a niggly hamstring and you’re wondering why it just won’t go away? First of all, let’s run through a bit of anatomy. The hamstring group is made up of three muscles. They all originate at your sit bones, and insert either side of your knee. Because they attach over two joints (hip and knee), they can produce movement at both! The main movements they produce are knee flexion, hip extension, and rotation of the hip through different movements. So, being a relatively big muscle group, why are they so often injured? Well, the hamstrings are most

Do you know what patellofemoral pain (PFP) is? It is a common condition, and studies have suggested that 25% of people suffer from PFP at some point in their lives, and 2.5 million runners experience PFP in a year. PFP is usually caused by malalignment of the knee-cap and the distal end of the thigh bone, which the knee cap glides on to when we move our legs. It is similar to a train on its track. The knee-cap is the train and the femur (thigh bone) is the track. If they are not aligned properly, the soft tissue underneath

Do you know much about bone health/bone density or osteoporosis?    What is Osteoporosis? Osteoporosis is defined as reduced bone density, and it leaves bone brittle, and at higher risk of fracture when an osteoporotic person had a fall or any other high-impact incident. Osteoporosis is a very common condition in Australia, and it was estimated that approximately 3.8% of the Australian population has osteoporosis, and it leads to over 170,000 fractures each year.    Osteoporosis is generally diagnosed with bone scan. Common osteoporotic areas such as the lumbar spine and hip will usually be scanned, and data will be

What is manual therapy? Manual therapy is a technique that is applied by hand from the physiotherapist, and has a neurophysiological effect that can modulate and reduce pain. It is an umbrella term and it consists of a variety of different techniques, such as joint mobilisation and soft tissue release techniques. What does manual therapy do? In the past, it was thought that manual therapy can physically put structures that are “at fault” or “malaligned” back into places. However, more recent scientific evidence has shown that manual therapy does not work this way. Manual therapy actually provides a neurophysiological effect

Are you someone who routinely suffers from jaw pain? One of the most common causes of jaw or TMJ dysfunction that we see in the clinic results from people clenching their teeth at various times throughout the day, as well as when asleep at night! Why is this? Clenching generally occurs when an individual is under an extra amount of stress during the daily lives. This can range from feeling frustrated at work, to trying to load your squat up too much at the gym. Whatever the cause, we are sure that you have been guilty of it at some

Diet is an often overlooked part of concussion management, as well as health in general. We’ve heard that your gut is a second brain. At Wellness Embodied Cairns, we’re lucky enough to have a Physiotherapist who is also a degree qualified naturopath- working out of our Scott Street clinic. Part of our CCMI concussion injury management protocol is to provide nutrition advice. BUT- what impact would it have on your sporting performance, as well as your recovery, if your nutrition was optimised BEFORE sustaining an injury? Check out our Wellness Embodied Cairns physiotherapy video discussing this here. For further information

Whether you’re frustrated with the rate of an injury healing, or your progress in training/ life, the concept of the ‘dip’ is important to be aware of. A simple case study on how injury healing isn’t linear might be a sprained ankle in a marathon runner. Say the runner simply rests for several weeks – even with Physio to restore normal range of movement and advise on protective loading. By the time they go back to training, they’ll already be a little bit behind, may have lost some vital strength in the glutes and other muscles (unless they’re very diligent