Category: Exercise

Personally, we like to start with lower body foam rolling before going to the upper body because we find a lot of the roller for lower legs requires my upper arm strength and most of the time when we start with the upper body by the time we finish with lower legs, our arms need a roll again. 

But that’s just our personal preference, you do you 🙂

Foam rolling helps release tension in the muscles, relieve muscle soreness, and improve flexibility and range of motion.

Foam rolling is a self-myofascial release (SMR) technique. It can help relieve muscle tightness, soreness, and inflammation, and increase your joint range of motion.

Foam rolling can be an effective tool to add to your warm-up or cool down, before and after exercise. And the benefits of foam rolling may vary from person to person.

Foam rolling is generally considered safe to do if you experience muscle tightness or regularly exercise. But avoid foam rolling if you have a serious injury such as a muscle tear or break, unless your doctor or a physical therapist has cleared you first.

Also avoid rolling over small joints like your knees, elbows, and ankles, which could cause you to hyperextend or damage them. Instead, when foam rolling your legs, roll out your calves first and then your quads separately, avoiding the knee area.

Foam rolling may help relieve tension during pregnancy. Just get cleared by your doctor first and avoid lying on your back to foam roll later in your pregnancy. You also should skip rolling out the calves in your third trimester. This may cause premature labor. Talk to your doctor if you are concerned.

Keeping in mind these exercises are of general nature and do not take your health injuries/history into consideration. In order to fully rehab your discomfort, you will still need to continue to progress to harder foam rolling exercises that are specifically tailored for you to feel pain free while working or exercising.

Here at Capital Physiotherapy, our physiotherapists are the experts in helping you to fix your issues as well as all the discomfort that comes with it!

We can help you lead a healthier and pain free lifestyle. 

Our physiotherapist will be able to give a full assessment on you and come out with individualised advice/ treatment plan that is tailored for your particular needs.

 At Capital Physiotherapy, your initial appointment is 40-60minutes long. This allows our physios to be thorough in their assessment, as well as giving them enough time to give you treatment on the same consultation! 

For any physiotherapy related concerns, visit our clinics near you or you can do online booking for faster appointment. We also provide Telehealth Consultation for your safety and convenience during this pandemic.

If the neck musculature is strong, the person can withstand greater force before an injury is sustained. In addition to decreasing neck injuries, strengthening upper body muscles will help prevent chronic conditions.

If you have a past or current neck discomfort then it is vital that you restore your neck and shoulder strength through your rehabilitation program.

Having Strong Neck and Shoulder Muscles will

1. Prevent risk of neck sprain
2. Prevent chronic or acute injuries to the surrounding muscles of the neck and shoulder
3. Protect the adjacent joints
4. Improve the performance of your sports and daily activities and productivities

This video will show you simple exercises for your neck and shoulder to help strengthen your neck at the comfort of your own home. These exercises are of different levels of difficulties so make sure you do that at your own pace.

Keeping in mind these exercises are of general nature and does not take your neck injuries/history into consideration. In order to fully rehab your neck discomfort you will still need to continue to progress to harder and more functional strengthening exercises that are specifically tailored for you,  in order to feel pain free while working.

Here at Capital Physiotherapy, our physiotherapists are the experts in helping you to fix your neck issues as well as all the discomfort that comes with it!

We can help you lead a healthier and pain free lifestyle. 

Our physiotherapist will be able to give a full neck and shoulder assessment on you and come out with individualised advice/treatment plan that is tailored for your particular needs.

 At Capital Physiotherapy, your initial appointment is 40-60 minutes long. This allows our physios to be thorough in their assessment, as well as giving them enough time to give you treatment on the same consultation! 

If you have physiotherapy concerns, you may visit our Footscray clinic or call us on  03 9687 2544 for more details. We also provide Telehealth Consultation for your safety and convenience during this pandemic.

In order to learn how to get your first pistol squat, we are going to show you some stretch and progression exercise to help you get to your first Pistol Squat!

To do your first pistol squat you not only need strength but a lot of people actually fail to do pistol squat properly due to their lack of flexibility in their hip and ankle so in this video.

We’ll show you some exercises that will help you improve the quality of your one leg squat and hopefully help you learn ways and strategies on how to get your first pistol squat. 

Many people require pistol squats for their sports such as figure skating sit spin, MMA, advanced yoga moves etc.

Learning how to get your first pistol squat doesn’t come easy. But in this video, we are going to teach you step by step on how to get your first pistol squat.

If after trying out all these hacks and tips and you are still experiencing difficulties, it might be time for you to seek some professional help.

Here at Capital Physiotherapy we can help you accurately diagnose and treat your aches and discomfort as well as helping you achieve your fitness goals.

If you still have issues with your pistol squat and wish to seek more personal advice. We strongly encourage you to book a session with one of our fully qualified physiotherapists here in Capital physiotherapy. Our physiotherapist will be able to give you more individualised advice that is tailored for your particular needs.

At Capital Physiotherapy, your initial appointment is 40-60minutes long. This allows our physio to be thorough in their assessment, as well as giving them enough time to give you treatment on the same consultation! 

For more physiotherapy concerns and questions, visit any of our clinics near you or call us on 0401 865 333. 

One day you’re at your company desk, the next you’re WFH indefinitely in a pandemic. Here’s how to make your home set up to improve the productivity of your work.

Due to this pandemic, more and more people are working from home at the moment. Albeit working from home has its own perks, it also comes with its own disadvantages.

Here are some easy hacks that you can start doing to make working from home more comfortable and productive for you.

1. Take your time to set up your workstation. We have a video here to show you how you can optimise your workstation at home as close to ideal as possible, so make sure you check them out!

2. One of the disadvantages is that there is no longer a clear separation between work and home space. Most people end up working longer hours as there is no longer a clear separation between working and relaxing areas.

Hence, if possible, try to set a room designated for work only. In that way you will have a specific space at your house that you can relate as a “work area” and anywhere else would be your “relax zone” this will help you find more work-life balance even when you are working at home.

3. Regular stretches throughout working hours.

Here’s a video that will help break up your long working days and will help prevent tightness build up from prolonged sitting.

4. Regular exercises. Try to find 30-45 minutes daily doing any exercise that you enjoy. This will help keep your cardiovascular fitness and general strengthen and joints mobilities but it will also significantly help out your mental load in these difficult times.

5. Reducing the reflection of your monitor screen. Minimal reflection on screen – if there is glare, try tilting the screen slightly downwards. This will reduce neck tension by leaning too forward towards the screen and also minimise eyes focusing fatigue.

If after trying out all these hacks and tips and you are still experiencing aches and pain, it’s time for you to seek some professional help.

Here at Capital Physiotherapy we can help you accurately diagnose and treat your aches and discomfort.

If you still have issues with your pain or if you wish to continue your rehab for full rehabilitation of your issues, we strongly encourage you to book a session with one of our fully qualified physiotherapists at Capital physiotherapy. Our physiotherapist will be able to give you more individualised advice that is tailored for your particular needs.

 At Capital Physiotherapy, your initial appointment is 40-60minutes long. This allows our physios to be thorough in their assessment, as well as giving them enough time to give you treatment on the same consultation! 

For any physiotherapy related concerns, visit our clinic in Footscray or any of our clinics near you, or make an online booking here. We also provide Telehealth Consultation for your safety and convenience during this pandemic.

Our Physiotherapy Clinics in Melbourne

How Can I Squat Deeper?

Squat is one of the most commonly asked questions from our clients

• Why can’t you squat?
• Is my squat technique correct? 
• Why do I feel it in my back instead of my legs?
• I Don’t feel my glutes muscles working at all when i squat 

Here’s the thing that no one ever talks about the fact that squat loads up on different muscle groups/ structures depending on the person’s body type.

Hence, it’s normal for different people doing the same squat but feeling at a completely different muscle group just because their body build is different!

All these factors influence the quality of squat for different individuals. Watch our youtube video so you can understand how different body structure will interrelate to the ability to squat.

• Centre of mass has to be over your feet to stay balance
• Dist Knee to line of gravity
• Distant of Hip to line of gravity
• Amount of Trunk leaning over the line of gravity

Load on knee depends on how far your knee is when you squat to the line of gravity

So if your knee is far away from the line of gravity the higher the load

It is the same concept for Load of the hip depends on distance from your hip to the line of gravity

The load of your back depends on how far the trunk leans over the line of gravity. 

As the hip muscles are generally stronger than knee  muscles; the lever arm from hip to centre is generally larger than the lever arm from knee to the centre.

Normally the ratio should be 2:1 for an ideal squat BUT

With different people being build differently it changes this ratio and your ability to squat

The amount that your trunk have to lean forward depend on the lever arm of the hip to the line of gravity

The lesser the length on hip to centre the less your trunk has to lean, the longer the length of hip to centre, the more the trunk has to lean to stay balanced.

1. People with limited dorsiflexion ability (tightness or joint mobility is limited)- affect your ability to move your tibia forward, that in turn change the lever arm for your knee to the line of gravity

2.Proportion of Femur to Tibia

Short Tibia in proportion to femur, ability to squat lower; the back need to bend way forward to keep centre of mass over the feet (in order to stay balance) because the length of knee to line of gravity is really short

Long Tibia in proportion to femur, the line of gravity to the knee is longer hence the person doesn’t have to lean as far forward to keep their balance.

 

Because of these differences in lever arm it makes how each individual feels different when they are doing squat exercises.

LONG FEMUR compared to tibia?

 

If you have a long femur in proportion to tibia, your lower back will need to lean significantly forward  to keep the equilibrium, in order to get any lower you might feel like you are falling backwards. You might just physically can’t do it because of the proportion of your build.

If your trunk is short and you have a long femur it makes it even worse as you can compensate by leaning too far forward so you will be even higher in their squat and you will feel the load a lot on your hip and lower back.

All these factors are interdependent and it will affect how each individual feels about squat and the ability of each individual to squat.

So if you are really struggling with your squat technique even though you’ve been working on your hip flexibility, your ankle flexibility, your back, glute and leg strength and you are wondering why you are still struggling with squat, this might be the reason and for that i say, DON’T SWEAT IT!

Squat is a good exercise to work on all different muscles groups but so is leg press, back extension, lunges, deadlift, hip trust etc. there are plenty of other exercises you can do that will work the same muscles group as squatting does. If  you really struggle in a squat and it is frustrating you, don’t sweat it, it’s not the end of the world, it’s just not the right exercise for you!

Here at Capital Physiotherapy, our physiotherapists are the experts in helping you to fix your posture/alignment issues as well as all the discomfort that comes with it!

We can help you break this habit and lead a healthier and pain free lifestyle. 

Our physiotherapist will be able to give you individualised advice/ treatment plan that is tailored for your particular needs.

At Capital Physiotherapy, your initial appointment is 40-60minutes long. This allows our physios to be thorough in their assessment, as well as giving them enough time to give you treatment on the same consultation! 

For physiotherapy related queries and concern, visit us at any of our clinics near you or do an online booking with us. We also provide Telehealth Consultation for your safety and convenience during this pandemic.