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What structures are normally damaged/affected with an ankle sprain?

When your ankle is damaged from it being twisted too far from its usual position you will receive an ankle sprain. Ankle sprains refer to the damage to the ligaments connecting the bones in the ankle area. You can know that your ankle is swollen when the hear a pop or crack or if you find any symptoms of a strain ankle like pain, inflammation, and difficulties of walking.

Ligaments are located at areas that flex and are strong fibrous connective tissues that connect to bones to allow us to flex and bend our our body parts. The bones that make up the ankle includes the tibia(the shin bone), fibula (a thin bone that runs beside the tibia, and the talus(the foot bone).  The lateral ligaments prevent over inversion of the foot while the medical ligaments prevent eversion of the foot. An inversion of the foot is vastly more common than an eversion of the foot. The Anterior Talofibular Ligament is a lateral ligament located at the front lateral articular facet(where two bones meet) of the talus and is the most common ligament to be injured.

An ankle strain can be measured in three levels ranging from mild to moderate to severe depending on how much your ligaments have been damaged. A mild sprain is the most common and only has your ligaments be stretched causing the area to swell a little while your ankle is still stable while movement. A moderate sprain has some of your ligaments torn causing movement to be limited and cause more pain and swelling. A severe strain has one or more ligament be torn or torn completely and makes the ankle unstable and restricts all or most movement from that area. There is a large amount of inflammation and swelling when a severe sprain is made which will lead to a large amount of pain.

Ice and rest could help with the recovery of mild sprains but more severe injuries could require more treatment for a full recovery or a faster recovery. Treatments include physiotherapy, surgery, medication, and immobilization within the ankle and let it heal. The inability of a proper treatment can cause the victim to experience chronic pain or weaknesses in injuries making it so your ankles capabilities detalerates. It might become hard for you to flex your ankle without feeling discomfort or have trouble with intensive exercises like jumping and running without feeling pain. Usually people that are always overusing their ankle will experience the chronic effects of their decision. Being a runner, sports player, dancer, or gymnast doesn’t exclude you from the effects of a sprained ankle but the use of your ankle in these occupations or hobbies can make the symptoms worse.

When you experience an ankle sprain it might make it hard to move, it might hurt and even affect your way of life. Injuries should be taken care of fast and going to physiotherapy is the best way to avoid the possibility of sprain. At Complete Care, we can offer advice and improvements to make sure you can be resilient against potential injuries like the common strain. The best way to make sure your body can face a fast recovery is by making your body as healthy as possible. To make sure you can feel the best you can be even after an injury we offer exercises, messages and movements. Physiotherapy is the best way to suppress inflammation and will help ease the mind of stress with more oxygen it creates. Come to Complete Care, we can take away all your pain.

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Shockwave Therapy – What Is It?

What Is It?

Shockwave therapy is a type of non surgical treatment used to help recover acute or chronic pain. It is used in orthopaedics, physiotherapy, sports medicine, urology and veterinary medicine.

How Does It Work?

This type of treatment uses a device that produces a series of low energy acoustic waves, and applying it to the injured parts of the body. The energy promotes regeneration and reparative process to bones, tendons and enhances blood circulation to regenerate damaged tissue.

During this process the therapist would first located the area that is to be treated by using palpation in order to deliver the therapy precisely.

They would then apply a amount of gel the area located in step 1. The use of gel is necessary in order to transfer the acoustic waves efficiently and smoothly.

The therapist would then use the Shockwave applicator and would slightly push against the area to be treated and the start button is pressed.

The energy waves comes in contact with the damaged tissue, causing the body to increase blood flow to that certain area. This initiates vascular neogenesis and a reparative cycle and leads to fibroblastic production and new healthy tissue in the area that was once avascular tissue.

Pros About This Process

The advantages about this treatment is that its is non-invasive and does not require any anesthesia or drugs. There are also limited side effects, no scaring or rick of infections, which allows patients to have no downtime from doing what they love.

Patients usually experience immediate pain relief after the treatment. However, there may be some soreness in the areas treated within 2-4 hours after treatment.

There are also reports that show that shockwave therapy has 90% success rates.

Other

The number of treatments varies depending on the indication and tissue response. Typically patients would require 3-5 treatments. However, it is very often that patients experience relief right after the first treatment.

It is also recommended that patients refrain from physical activity, especially ones that involve the treated area of the body, for about 48 hours after each treatment session.

If you have any questions regarding this article, or anything comments you have about what you just read. Please feel free to contact us!

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Pediatric Physiotherapy

From behavior to physiology, children are exceptionally distinct from adults. A Physiotherapist’s role is to assess and treat dysfunctional movements related to musculoskeletal, neurological and/or cardiorespiratory conditions. Our physiotherapists will use exercise, movement facilitation, therapeutic modalities and equipment, education, and health promotion as part of our treatment techniques.

When it comes to children, parents are heavily involved with their child’s assessment and treatment procedures. Physiotherapist will ask the parent questions regarding their child’s health history. Physiotherapists will determine the problem and will inform the parent about the child’s condition. They will create goals for the child and provide information and exercises to the parent for their child to do at home and during the treatment.

Your Child's Assessment

During the assessment, physiotherapists are especially tuned in to the child’s development that includes gross motor skills, movement patterns, muscle tone, strength, flexibility and posture. Each client whether they are a child or an adult demands unique needs. Our physiotherapist will create a personalized treatment plan for a child that will work towards any of the following:

Posture

Movement and range of motion

Strength and endurance

Gross or fine motor skills

Balance and coordination

Functional activities

Activity modification

Complete Care Physiotherapy can help your child recover and avoid physical ailments as they change and grow. Feel free to contact us to schedule an appointment. We have offices in Brampton, Mississauga, and Hamilton (Hamilton Mountain and Stoney Creek).

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What is Osteopathy?

Here at Complete Care Physio, we get clients from all over Brampton asking what is osteopathy. It is a cool name and sounds mysterious. Also, since we strive to ensure our clients are well-educated and knowledgeable. We decided to teach you about what osteopathy is all about. The best way to put it is that it is a drug-free, non-invasive manual therapy that aims to improve health across all body systems by manipulating and strengthening the musculoskeletal framework.

An osteopathic physician will focus on the joints, muscles, and spine. Treatment aims to positively affect the body’s nervous, circulatory, and lymphatic systems. The osteopath uses a wide array of manual approaches to reduce and resolve strains, stress and dysfunction in all areas of the body.

The goal is to remove restrictions to biomechanical mechanisms and ultimately support the natural healing mechanism by promoting autoregulation. And at our Complete Care Physio location here in Brampton, our goal is to focus on the holistic health of the client and therefore provide overall good health and wellbeing.

An osteopath will be using their hands to find areas of strains, weaknesses, tenderness, or even restrictions in your body. You may be required to remove some your clothing, provided you give consent. Also, the osteopath will ask you to perform simple movements to improve the session. They will be using their hands to treat you in several ways, using a mixture of gentle and forceful techniques.

They Will Include:

Massages – This helps to relax and ease your muscles

Stretching stiff joints in your body

Articulation – Your joints will experience the full range of motion

High-velocity thrusts – short, sharp movements to the spine

The techniques performed is to ensure reduction of pain, improve your movement and encourage blood flow within your body. It isn’t painful, but there is the possibility you will experience some soreness or stiffness within the first few days after treatment. The osteopath will warn you ahead of time if you will experience anything. However, if you feel any pain during or after treatment, do tell your osteopath about it.

If you have any questions or comments regarding what we have said, please feel free to contact us!

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Primer on Upper Back Pain

Whether you sit all day for work or experiencing stresses on your upper back due to heavy lifting, it is important to maintain the health of your upper back or otherwise known as Thoracic spine. When a client develops stiffness and/or pain in the upper back, the areas above (cervical) and below (lumbar) will have to compensate to achieve functional range of motion. This is why clients who complain about neck pain and/or shoulder pain also have complaints of pain in their upper back.

Symptoms

Each individual is different with different demands put on their bodies. Here are a several reasons for pain in the upper back:

Injury or overuse of muscles or ligaments from heavy lifting

Injury to the vertebral discs

Injury or overuse of muscles or ligaments from heavy lifting

Abnormal pressure on the nerves of the spine from conditions such as herniated disc, tendonitis or degenerative joint disease

Poor posture

Repetitive strain injury

Osteoarthritis

Fracture

Myofascial pain

Exercises You Can Do

Strengthening and stretching exercises are some of the tools our physiotherapists use to restore strength in the upper back. Some of the exercises are outlined below and can be done without any equipment:

- Prone lateral raise

Lying stomach down on a comfortable surface (i.e. Bench or carpet) with arms extended, lift your arms up until your elbows are at shoulder height. Keep your arms perpendicular to your torso and fully extended throughout the movement. When lifting, squeeze your shoulder blades together and hold for one count. Repeat 15 times 3 times a day

- Front raise thumbs up

Lying stomach down on a comfortable surface with the forehead relaxed and on the surface. Place your extended arms over your head and thumbs up in the air. Exhale and raise your arms up straight while fully extended. During lift off, squeeze the muscles between your shoulder blades. Hold for one count. Repeat 15 times 3 times a day.

- Arm Slides

Stand against a wall while slightly squatting. Place elbows and wrist pressed parallel against the wall. Slowly slide your arms up as high as you can keeping your elbows and wrists against the wall. Repeat 15 times.

Our physiotherapists at Complete Care Physiotherapy Brampton aim to restore normal function and improve our clients’ mobility via reducing pain in the affected area and bring back strength and flexibility.

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Winter Running Tips

Running is slowly re-gaining in popularity, as the healthy living movement gains traction. However, as winter rolls in, it is important to make sure each and everyone who plans to keep running outside run safely. Here at Complete Care Physio, we care about the safety of our clients, and the appreciate the rapidly growing movement of healthy living. Hence, we decided to tell you some tips and tricks to keep in mind when running out in the winter!

Choosing the Right Shoes

When running during the winter, the first to make sure you have chosen correctly is the shoe. The first quality it should have is cold proof, and keeps water out as well. Besides, you do not want to be slipping all over the place, so having good treads on the sole of your shoe is important.

Winter Suitable Clothing

A regular set of clothing during the winter would a be bulky coat and several layers. However, that is not practical if your goal is to be running outside. Hence, preparing a suitable set of clothes is vital to ensure your session proves to be successful. One feature all your clothing should possess is that it is moisture wicking material. So that your sweat does not get cold and give you shivers the longer you spend your time outside. You generally need thin layers that prevent wind and water and have small linings to keep you warm. For pants, tights are your best choice for comfort and ease of running.

Choosing Appropriate Colors & Lights

During the winter, it is hard to spot runners, so you have to do your part to ensure others can see you. Hence, picking appropriate colors to make you stand out during the whitewash of winter is important. Even then, it is a good idea to wear reflective fluorescent gear. Consider also wearing a headlamp or taking along a torch so you can see better during the long winter nights.

Warming Up

It is hard to warm up outside in the chilly weather, so warming up inside your home, with your running gear on is a good idea. Perhaps you can use a jump rope, run up and down your stairs, or even quickly clean up your house. If you are driving to your running location, linger some time in your car so your body warms up.If you have any questions, please contact us!

Complete Care Physio is dedicated to helping you get the best care you possibly can. We have physiotherapists in Hamilton, Brampton, and Mississauga ready to serve your needs. If you have any questions, please contact us!

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SWORD Health

In technological advancements, SWORD Health has developed a digital physiotherapy solution to allow patients to receive physical rehabilitation from their homes! SWORD Phoenix uses high-precision motion trackers and an AI digital therapist that guides patients through every session with feedback and makes sure every exercise is correctly performed. The Clinical Portal enables professionals to perform an analysis of every patient’s progress and change programs based on the data taken, maximizing efficiency. The program is less costly than face-to-face counseling, patients feel more supported and physiotherapists are able to treat five times more patients per hour!

Over 15% of the world’s population or one billion people experience some form of disability. Researchers and scientists have made remarkable growth in the physiotherapy field. With better knowledge and technology, the lives of people suffering with physical disabilities can be improved! If you have any questions regarding this article or comments you have about what you just read.

Complete Care Physio provides expert Physiotherapy services to the Brampton, Mississauga, and Hamilton areas. Please feel free to contact us!

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Cystic Fibrosis

It is estimated that 1 in every 3,600 children born in Canada has cystic fibrosis (CF), a serious genetic disease affecting mainly the digestive system and lungs. Typical difficulties of CF are difficulty digesting fats and proteins, inability to absorb nutrients, lung damage, diabetes and sinus infections. The University of Adelaide has found that cells causing this disorder can be successfully replaced with healthy ones. The technique involves harvesting adult stem cells from the lungs of the patient, correcting them with gene therapy and reintroducing the cells back into the new patient. This passes on healthy genes and allows the airways to be replenished with healthy cells that can combat CF airway disease. If the technique is perfected, this can accelerate the improvement of those combatting this illness.

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Muscular Torticollis

Congenital muscular torticollis or ‘twisted neck’ is a deformity that causes the neck to be tilted to one side and turned to the opposite side. This is due to the shortening of the sternocleidomastoid muscle, the neck muscle responsible for rotating and flexing. Researchers have discovered new and updated actions that can help to combat CMT. This includes allowing the infant to be on their tummy in order to promote strong neck and trunk muscles, screening all infants from birth through six months and physical therapy to improve the neck range of motion, strength and alignment.

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Pilates Study

Physiotherapy professionals conducted a study on how a pilates exercise program would affect the lives of people with chronic musculoskeletal conditions. The 15 women and 7 seven men, ranging from the ages 36-83, saw an improvement physically, mentally and socially. They had an increased active lifestyle, better social life and the ability to better efficiently manage their own condition.

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Physiotherapy Benefits

Here at Physiotherapy Brampton, there are several benefits you can get from one of our sessions.

But before discussing the benefits of physiotherapy, it is important to understand what physiotherapy is. Some of you may have the wrong idea what it is. A quick search on wikipedia tells us that it involves the use of mechanical force and movement. As well as manual therapy, exercise therapy, as well as electrotherapy.

These therapies fix injuries and improves mobility and function. During a session, physiotherapists at Physiotherapy Brampton use several methods such as examining, using physical intervention, and educating patients. This is to make sure the patient can recover without issues. Furthermore, one thing to note you can call our physiotherapists physical therapists. Moving on.

The important benefits of physiotherapy are:

Reduce and/or Eliminate Pain – The main goal of any physiotherapy is the reduction or healing of pains. Therapeutic exercise, manual therapy and electrotherapy are some used to provide patients with pain relief, restore muscle or joint function.

Recover from Sports Injury –  In sports, athletes suffer injuries. Therefore they require immediate and quick recovery to get back to playing their sport. Physiotherapy is used to help get back an athletes strength, agility and other areas they lost.

Reduce or avoid medication or surgery – Physiotherapy can allow a patient to ignore medication in healing their injury. Plus, if the therapy is successful in healing it, they can ignore surgery. Even minor recoveries following physiotherapy can help with quicker recovery following surgery.

Improved Personal Life – An injury can mean terrible sleep and being unable to daily tasks. Physiotherapy can help with these issues by reducing pain, allowing your body to rest and recover better. It also strengthens your body and mind, recovering your ability to complete daily tasks that were once difficult to do.

Complete Care Physio offers various services including physiotherapy, chiropractic and sports injury rehab in Brampton. If you have any questions about how physiotherapy can be useful to you, please contact us for further information.

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Is Chiropractic Safe?

A Brampton chiropractor answers the question everyone has about chiropractic care.

The Brampton chiropractor often hears questions about chiropractic care, and how safe it is to the patient. This is what he had said. Considering how chiropractic care is focused on the diagnosis and treatment of issues in the musculoskeletal system, especially the spine and neck, you do run a slight risk in hurting yourself. However, finding the right chiropractor for you plays an important role in it. They care about your safety and comfortability above everything else. Plus, they will follow guidelines and rules to make sure nothing goes wrong in your treatment.

Besides, the benefits of chiropractic care is quite beneficial to anyone who seeks it. The immediate benefit someone will walk away with is powerful pain relief. There are also studies that examined this in depth. One showed spinal manipulation was more effective than medication for acute neck pain. Another study on neck pain showed faster improvement with chiropractic treatments but also that they paid less for their treatment overall.

Another benefit is that chiropractic care can provide totally drug-free pain relief. Pain patients also use pain medications, both prescription and over-the-counter, and being able to reduce the daily intake of drugs is important and beneficial. It can also reverse the cause of some of your pain. For instance, if you are suffering from pain from your neck, painkillers will give you a short relief– but seeing a chiropractor can help make the pain go away all together.

Benefits to consider:

The customizable treatments available to patients

Chiropractic care provides options for cancer patients who aren’t seeing improvements from other medicine and different types of care

Chiropractic care can be beneficial for pregnant women to get pain relief

Chiropractors are knowledgeable in nutrition and exercise, and can guide you through them

It is scary to know that you can get an injury from chiropractic care. But, if you are able to come to us and get help from our certified chiropractors, the chances of being injured are slim to none. Plus, you can enjoy the benefits that chiropractic care can bring you. The choice is up to you. We at Complete Care Physio offer the best chiropractic service in Brampton. Contact us today to book your appointment.

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Sports Injury Rehabilitation

Sports injury rehabilitation can be your choice to treat an injury.

Sports injury rehabilitation can change your life around, only if you are willing to give it a chance. Whether you are a athlete or someone who likes to play sports, getting injuries can be disappointing and frustrating. As a athlete, getting an injury can result in not being able to participate in any games or even worse, cause the end of their career. If you are someone who likes to play sports with their friends, an injury can cause serious impact on your professional life, family life and personal relationships.

Recovering from athletic injury can be a long and difficult process.  Many people don’t know what they need to do after an injury. Others can be experiencing severe pain and unable to help themselves. Even more, some can decide that in recovering from an injury, they don’t need to ask for help. This where sports injury rehabilitation can help you or others. It is very important to have a check-up and a treatment plan after injury. Early signs of an injury is also one of the key to getting back to shape. Physical therapy is a treatment technique that seeks to fix you body’s function as well as providing pain relief.

Regardless of how you were injured, there are a couple elements of fitness that need to be talked about in your treatment plan, which are “strength, flexibility, muscular endurance, power, agility, coordination, quickness and cardiovascular endurance.

Guidelines to Follow:

Begin as soon as possible ( ideally first 24-48 hrs)

Have a therapist go over your injury completely (first 2-7 days)

Having an active role in creating a treatment plan to fit you

Progress exercises in stages

Make sure to include rehabilitation specific to your injury and sport

Scheduling evaluations

It is important to know that the exercises used in your therapy do not focus on improving strength and flexibility. Instead, they are able to help you in retraining your muscles the correct way to function. The final goal is to allow a person to gain strength, flexibility and balance as well as prevent them from re-injuring in the future. Contact Complete Care Physio today for your closest location to begin your session.

If you have any further questions, please contact us!

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What Is Vestibular Rehabilitation Therapy?

The vestibular system is something that most people have no idea about, but like the rest of the systems in the body, it is extremely important and we should be taking care of it. One in three people will have vestibular problems.

What is the Vestibular System?

It consists of the organ inside of the ear and the parts of the brain that process information relating to the vestibular system. It is responsible for detecting the head’s position and movement, balance, and eye movement.

Vestibular Symptoms

If the vestibular system is damaged by disease, aging, or injury, vestibular disorders can happen as a result. Those with vestibular disorders might experience the following symptoms:

Dizziness and vertigo – spinning sensation when still; lightheadedness, floating or rocking feeling; sensation of being heavily weighted or pulled in one direction

Imbalance and spatial disorientation – difficulty walking straight or when turning; clumsiness; difficulty maintaining straight posture; difficulty walking in the dark; tendency to hold onto something when standing or seated

Vision Disturbance – trouble focusing or tracking objects; sensitivity to light, glare or flickering lights; discomfort from busy visual environment; poor depth perception

Change in Hearing – hearing loss; increased sensitivity to noise; or tinnitus

Cognitive and/or psychological changes – poor concentration; forgetfulness; difficulty understanding conversations; depression; anxiety or panic; reclusiveness

Other symptoms may include nausea or vomiting; ear pain; headaches; slurred speech. Patients with Meniere’s disease, benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) are likely candidates for treatment. Other possible candidates include those who have had a stroke, brain injury or often fall.

What To Expect During Vestibular Rehabilitation

When the vestibular system isn’t working properly, the recommended treatment is vestibular rehabilitation therapy. Proper vestibular rehabilitation assessment can be time-consuming, but it is thorough. You should expect:

Discussion on history and nature of symptoms

Evaluation of gait (the way you walk)

Screening of the inner ear

Evaluation of eye movements

Testing for sensitivity to motion or position change

Evaluation of balance (still and moving), leg strength and flexibility

Testing other possible contributing factors like the neck or blood-pressure

Based on what is found during the evaluation, a personal treatment plan will be made. Possible activities include eye exercises, training to reduce sensitivity, balance challenges and strategies to deal with cognitive/psychological symptoms.

How Successful is Vestibular Rehabilitation?

Much research has been done on vestibular rehabilitation therapy, with clinical practice guidelines and position statements provided by specialists. You can expect the treatment to improve ability to function when performing everyday activities and reduce the risk of falling. In most cases, symptoms will significantly decrease or disappear completely.

Now that you are informed of what the vestibular system is and the possible symptoms. You can now be more aware of when issues arise. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us!

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Methods To Keep Your Feet Healthy

You can live a healthier life and possibly relieve some of your pain from our advice. Here are some tips that can keep your feet healthy:

Avoid Shoes with High-to Toe Offset

We all like pretty shoes, especially high heels, however, these modern and dressy shoes are not functional and restrict your feet from performing naturally. In the long term, they are not functional. You can indicate the functionality of your shoes by looking at the Heel to Toe Offset, it is the amount of drop from your heels to your toes in your show. When the offset is higher, there will be a higher stress placed on your feet and lower legs. It makes us standing and walking naturally and can contribute to serious consequences for your low back health after time.

Work on your Balance

Even though our feet are small, they can support a large and shifting mass above them. It is amazing that we don’t have feet and ankle pain under each moment. Working on balance is important because they reduce the chances injuries like ankle sprain and fractures and improve the efficiency of your body function at the same time. Balance for aging people will deteriorate and increase the possibility of falling. It is essential to maintain balance especially for older groups as falling can lead to serious consequences.

You can strengthen your foot and lower leg muscles as well as practicing your balance by standing on one leg for 30-60 seconds.

Stretch

In our life, we spend a large amount of our time walking. Walking is many people’s main way to exercise, but most of us have poor flexibility in muscles, tendons, joints in ankle, foot and lower legs. It is because we never stretch them. According to research, many painful conditions that impact foot and ankle are caused by tightness. So we should improve our mobility, help our body to move more efficiently and reducing unusual loading of tissues by stretching every day or several times a week. For example, you can prevent developing painful condition that affect your function for your Achilles tendon.

Next time, remember to stretch your calves and feet when your are stretching other parts of your  body in the morning.

Change Your Shoes Regularly

You should change your running shoes if it is worn for more than four months. Check the bottom of shoes to check the damages of them Always replace your shows on a regular basis just like your changing your tires!

Wear Flats Shoes which Allows your Toes to Move

Most shoes including athletic shoes have over high heels and little room your toes and move and function naturally. Those thick and pointy shoes are not good for your feet health despite they are then standards in the industry.

It is smart to look for shows with little elevation in the hells and provide room for your toes, no matter what shoes you are looking for. Many women have to wear heels for many occasions, it is fine as long as it is for short periods.

Strengthen your Toes and Calves

You will reduce the chances to develop injuries including ankle spaces and the ones that caused by overuse syndrome by strengthening your toes and calves. Paying attention most to you calves will be helpful. Here is a video of exercise on your toes and calves.

Strengthen your Toes and Ankles

By strengthening your toes and ankles, you  will keep a normal gait pattern, prevent repetitive stress and weight on  joints, maintain a normal arch, so that your strong foot helps your knee and hip to move and perform much better.

Here is a practice that helps you to strengthen your calves, toes extensor and improve the movements for your toes, which you need for normal walking.

Strengthen Your Toes and Arch

The muscles and tendons you use to curl your toes help to keep the normal arch of your feet.  It is important to keep you flexors hallucinate braves and longus, flexor digitorum longus and your lumbricals strong to keep your feet healthy and mobility free. Your feet  hold and support the weight from your body so it is vital to make sure the arch functions normally. This is a daily exercise for you.

Strengthen Your Toes

Your feet are the base of your body, therefore it has to be supportive. Our feet and lower leg muscles can stop functioning naturally because of the’ excessive sole, functioning and lack of room for toes from our shoes. Since we can’t barefoot outside, we should strengthen our toes by being barefoot at home and doing some toes’ strengthening.

Besides are some exercises that help you to strengthen your toes. They seems easy but actually not, and you probably need you hands to help you at the beginning. It is normal for you to feel minimal motion and control, you will improve once you practice many times.

Big Toe Flexion:  raise up all toes, at the same time,  keep your heel and ball of the foot on the floor. Then slowly lower the big toe to the floor, keep other toes up.

Arch up: Keep foot flat on the floor, and now elevate your arch higher. Try not scrunching your toes or turning your knees out.

Big Toe Extension: Place your foot flat on the floor, raise your big toe and keep other  toes and heel on the floor.

Big Toe and Little Toe Flexion: Keep the ball of foot and heel down, raise up the toes. You then lower your little toe to the floor and keep the other toes up. Put the little toe is down and lower the big toe to the floor. Your foot is supposed to be on the floor with big and little toes down and the other three up. This is a challenging exercise and you may need to practice many times.

Allow Your Toes to Splay

In a long time of the day, we cram our feet in shoes and squeeze our toes together very tight, which stops them from moving, splaying and functioning normally to support our body when we are walking and weight bearing. It can result in lower extremity dysfunctions, such as bunions.

We should remove our shoes and barefoot at the end of the day in order to pamper our feet and allow them to function healthily. If you feel the exercises above are too hard for your toes as they have poor dexterity, wear toe spreader to improve mobility and motor control. They help your toes and feet muscles to recruit from the position of splaying. You may need a little time to get used to it, and it will regain your mobility and balance greatly after some time. You still need to do the exercises because they are not a substitute for them.

Pamper your Feet

Our feet is made to be robust, carry weight from the body and connect us to the floor. We all stretch our hips, shoulders, back, and neck, but feet should also be stretched sometimes so that they can be healthy flexible and soft all the time.

You should use a foam roller and lacrosse ball to massage and use the areas that are sore from running, walking and standing.

A helpful exercise would be to roll your foot with a lacrosses ball or a rubber ball that is frim on the bottom sides and top.

For feet that are in pain and sore, freeze a water bottle and roll on it back and forth. After a workout, long uses of your feet or hiking, use a foam roller to maintain the suppleness of the muscles by rolling all ears of your calf. Do this with stretches will be better.

Using  a lacrosse ball in the same way to tight and tender spots is a good way too.

When doing the above work on bottom of feet and calf, don’t forget to stretch your toes one by one in a full range of motion.

Find a Physical Therapist

Physical therapists are movement experts that have postgraduate degrees and trainings to evaluate posture, gait, movement patterns, joint and soft tissue, strength and balance restrictions and nerve dysfunctions. By evaluating these parts, they will know the cause of your pain or dysfunction. Physical therapists use many manual therapy techniques, exercises and help you to solve your problem for you to return to a condition of pain free, natural function with no pain medication.

Physical therapists know the root of your foot or ankle problem. It is useful because everyone has different combinations of strengths and weaknesses that may transform to injuries.

A physical therapist will create a customized program of strengthening, stretching, movement and modification to treat your pain regardless of your problems are.

You will know when it is okay to get back to workouts and running safely and confidently with no re-injuries.

Keep in mind that when you are sidelined for more than  two weeks, it is essential to get professional help in order to return to your activities and training, and learning to move with no compensations that can result in more problems. When you go to a dentist twice a year for a check up or give maintenance and oil change for your car, you should also do that with your body. A physical therapist will provide yu movement screening and check out musculoskeletal injuries.

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Is Sitting Bad For Your Health?

Whether it’s because you’re in school or work an office job, we all tend to sit for hours at a time. Modern society has been built to sit, we spend more time off our feet than generations before. Although we experience less leg pain, recent studies have shown that sitting is doing more harm than good.

Increased Sitting

Over half of an average person’s daily life is spent driving, working, watching our favourite shows, etc… and this all involves sitting. While it isn’t inherently harmful, sitting too much can be bad if we do too much (similar to eating). So what are the risks?

Sitting Lowers The Amount of Calories Used Up

Everyday activities such as standing, walking, and fidgeting burns calories. But while they burn calories, the amount is small. And the fewer calories used up, the more likely you are to gain weight. This can lead to obesity. Research shows that obese people on average sit two more hours than lean people.

Sitting is Linked to Early Death

Observational data collected from over a million people shows that the more time you spend sitting, the more likely you are to die early. There’s about a 22-49% greater chance of early death.

Sitting is Linked to Disease

There are over 30 chronic diseases and conditions that can be developed due to sitting for prolonged periods. This includes a 112% increase of risk for type 2 diabetes, and a 147% increase of risk for heart disease. Sitting for a long time without reducing calorie intake can cause a dramatic increase in insulin resistance (which increases risk for type 2 diabetes).

Sitting Cannot Completely Eliminate the Risk

One hour of intense exercise cannot counterbalance the rest of the day spent on a chair. Around 47 studies have found that prolonged sitting is strongly linked to negative health outcomes, regardless of exercise. Regular, consistent exercise is recommended but it cannot offset the health risks completely, though it can lower the negative effects.

Due to all the negative side effects from a life of sitting, it is important to try to cut out sedentary time as much as possible. Invest in a standing desk for your home, stand on public transportation, take the stairs, use an ergonomic chair, exercise, and break up sitting time to allow for muscle engagement. Experts say to take a movement break every half an hour to lower risks.

If you are feeling discomfort or concerned about your physical health, consider talking to a physiotherapist.

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How to Minimize Injury When Running

Running is a great way for everyone to get into shape. Specifically, for those who want to get into shape without bulking up, this is the perfect exercise for you.

When running, having good lower body strength is crucial, especially since it is an exercise that increases speed and strength. All muscles in the leg needs to develop strength, especially the calves for mid foot runners and quads for heel strikers. For some informative exercise videos check out: ChrisJohnsonPT.com.

Another very important thing needed is tissue adaptability. If your training is increased too quickly it can negatively affect your health. So, starting with the walk-run program is a recommended, in order to start visit: TheRunningClinic.com.

Finally, recovery is essential when running. Hydration after running is very important and should be done within 2 hours after running. RunnersWorld.com says “For every kilogram of bodyweight you lose, you need to drink one-and-a-half litres of fluid. Try to drink around 500ml in the first 30 minutes after your run and keep gulping every 5-10 minutes until you have reached your target.”.