Dealing with everyday Aches & Pain

A bit of a chat to you about pain. Now, I'm not talking about pain that comes from an acute injury, and I'm not talking about pain if you just had an operation, because that's a whole different ball game. Pain after a major injury or something like that really needs to be dealt with by your surgeon and your physiotherapist who are working to really get that area where you had an operation or whatever on back to where it needs to be. But today we're talking about your general aches and pain So what you feel when you've maybe worked quite hard or whatever, and you have aches and pain in your body. So there are several people that you can see first and foremost. So a physiotherapist, an exercise physiologist, and an osteopath are three people that I would certainly be going to see because they are really good in their fields and will help you out in your body. I did not, at one stage there, when I had hip pain, low back pain that I hadn't had before, but I was starting to do some heavier weights. So I went to an exercise physiologist who looked at how I stood and how I moved.

And he worked out that, I had an excess curvature in my lower back. So every time I would lean forward and do a deadlift, I actually made that curvature even more. And so when I do my deadlift now, I just have to do a slight pelvic tilt just to get that curvature Get you out and straighten it out a bit more. So really, I think first and foremost, if you've had pain for a while, you really should be seeing either a physio, osteopath, or an exercise physiologist. They're all very good at what they do. So today we're just talking about this little niggles that everyone gets. And what do you do about them? Because they get annoying. But it's amazing how many clients I've shown some of these things to. And that next day or even straight after that, they've gone, wow, that That really, really worked. So I guess your ultimate, when you're in pain and you know you've done something with the way you've slept or you picked up that pot wrongly from the garden, the best thing you can possibly do then is to go to a remedial massage therapist. I go to a really good one.

She knows those tight spots. Sometimes you don't even know those tight spots yourself, but she'll be able to find those tight spots and really dig in there and get those tight spots untightened. But failing that, you can be doing so much for yourself, which is what we're going to talk about today. Being aware that any time you have pain, there's an inflammation there, and it will stay that way. When it comes down, often that injured area or the area where you've been really tight. We'll continue to stay tight until we untighten it. Now, if you have an acute injury, I might go really quickly into that. If you have an acute injury, the thing that you always need to do is RICE, so R-I-C-E. So that's where you rest the part. That's where you ice it. That's where you elevate it and compress it, or compress it and elevate it. So you really want to be taking care. If you've done an acute injury, say you've rolled your ankle, for example, or you've had a fall of something, and then you really need to really watch out for a while, just take care. Put that limb up if you can.

Allow your body to rest and recuperate. We're going to talk about the three main causes of tightness. So So it can be sitting or holding in a certain position for a prolonged period of time. So say, for example, if I'm at my desk all day, I'm at my desk, and I've got that rounded posture as I'm on my computer, that can So what is back pain, quite a bit of back pain. And that's just because we're in that same position all day. So that's one cause of pain and tightness. Another can be a lack of recovery. So if you're just going from workout to workout to workout, some people And become gym junkies, where they just work out every day and don't have a break. And if you don't have a rest day to recuperate and allow your muscles and cells to rest, then you're really putting yourself in line for some pain. And the other thing is repetitive move. So if you're at, again, at a gain at a desk and you're on a mouse all day, and you're doing your mouse back and forth, and your hands in this same position, that can also cause you pain.

So just in Specific spots where you can't move will also cause you pain. As a nurse with children for many years, I remember being on the top of a kid while we're trying to pop an IV in, and you don't want to move because that doctor, their little veins are so tiny, so precarious, and the doctor is doing all they can to get it in. So all you need is that for that child to move, and that vein, that drip is not going into that vein properly. So you're hunched over, normally a trolley with a child wrapped up in a sheet, trying to break free and screaming in your ear, and you're holding, how many times did I get back up from that? And I'm not somebody that normally gets back up. Anyway, so let's talk. So your ultimate would be to have a massage with a trained remedial massage therapist. And I'm not talking about a Thai massage or a gentle lovey-dovey massage. I'm talking about somebody that you know is a trained remedial massage therapist. Where do you find them? You ask around. If you're If your friends have experienced such relief from going to somebody, you can guarantee that that person will be good at what they do.

And I would be inclined to go to that person as well. Now, things that we can do at home on our own. I love foam rolling and balls and spiky balls. So foam rollers. So foam rollers, a bit of condensed foam. You put it behind you wherever your tight area is, and you roll through it. So say, for example, if I had a saw behind my I could put this on the wall and just roll sides to side. Actually, I'll just bring my chair back a bit so I can show you what I'll be doing. So I can put that back on the wall and I could roll side to side. Really, it feels so nice to really get in between the shoulders and really roll out where I'm tight. And you can do that wherever in the body. You can do this with your foam roller on the wall, or you can do it on the floor where you've got your body lying on the phone roller on the floor. And you can And get a wonderful stretch up from that. Really gets that fascia that lies over the top of the muscle stretched out again, where it's gotten all contracted up.

So that is a wonderful thing to be able to do. I love my foam rollers, and I often do it before I go to bed, particularly my hips. The back of my hips get very tight, and it's wonderful to just pop this foam roller on the floor and just roll back and forth through the hips. It feels really, really good. Balls, you don't need a spiky ball, but you can get a cheap spiky ball from Kmart or Big W, some of those cheap stores for all of $10. But I quite like my exercise balls. And again, you can pop that into a spot. So say if I was tight around in my neck area and just putting this into my trapezius that joins into my neck and then lying against the wall, and I roll back and forth through there, up and down. I can really, really give my neck a great as It's fantastic. There's been a couple of times when I slept wrongly in bed, or clients have, and I've got this into their trapezius muscle, which runs just down behind your neck, and it has done the job. So good. You can actually just hold it in a spot, just lean You can get back and hold it, or you can roll through, back and forth, and it just really feels good.

And just getting into those tightened areas. You know that quite a few of our tightened areas are also weak. And that's why I'm a big proponent. When you have a So it's a weak area, like a tight area, it's often weak as well. So the two things I always get my clients to do, I get them to strengthen and stretch. Then you know that you've addressed. If it's a weak muscle, you know that you're helping to strengthen. And I'm going to look on it again. Obviously, if this does not work, you would seek help from somebody that might know more. But this is just those tiny little nickels that you can have day in and day out. So the spiky balls are great as well. But if not a spiky ball, just a plain old tennis ball. Also just a gentle activity to move. So some clients come back to me from a few days before where they're all tight from doing a workout with me. And what they'll do to combat that, they'll work out again. And just in so moving the body, you just tend to iron out all those tight areas as well.

There's also creams and things you can use. So I love magnesium. Magnesium is a great thing to rub into your It gets right in there and just seems to help with cramps. If you look at all the things that magnesium does, cramps, tightness, it seems to work straight away. It's a natural thing. It's taken from salts, and that just works so incredibly well. So magnesium oil, you should be able to get that from any pharmacy. And the other thing that I love, well, I don't use much, but I tell my clients about it is PhysioCream. So it's used by obviously physiotherapists as well. When they're doing some treatment on you, if you're quite tight, they'll rub some of that into you. So that's easily obtainable from any shop as well. And you just rub that in. It smells like deep heat, so it really gets the area warm. But the other thing, it's got some natural healing properties in there as well. And the other things I've got here, you can actually explore, explore what works for you. So this is quite cool. It's like a little... It's like a.

Dozer thing. And you can rub. So say I've got a sore knee, I could put that on my leg and rub it forward and back and go all the way up. Or it could be around the back of my hip. So I think that's why it's on a nice big ropey thing. So it can really pull through there as well. So you can use things like this. And this is just bought from came up for about $10. Also, great one for the spine is when you have It's like a little two ball thing like this. And it can go either side of the spine. So you can put this behind your back and go back again against the wall, rock side to side, go up and down. And again, it's like having two balls. If you don't have one of these. I think we got this from a physiotherapist. But if you don't have one of these, you could just put two of these tennis balls, roughly around the same size, a bit bigger. Two of these in a sop, tie off the end of the sop, and you can be doing the same So put it directly behind your spine.

I like to use this with people with back pain, and it gets right in there. It could be even up around the top of your neck area, but just make sure you don't have a ball directly on your neck. So either side. So really get into those tight muscles. Another thing I've got here is a roller as well. So that can be used on, say, I've got a sore leg, tight leg. It can be used And you can rub that down. It's almost like rolling out dough. So you're all set to bake with. But that's good as well. And here we've got another... These foam rollers are mean, mean because they've got these little bumps all over them. Again, you can just put this behind you, but more than rolling through them, you just rock from side to side, and that can also get out those tight spots as well. So you can see that there's quite a few things you can use, and it's quite fun. If you can learn to get those little tiny aches and pains out yourself, fantastic. I've learned to do that along the way, but there's times you won't be able to, and that's where you need to seek help.

And I'm not saying you don't go there, but if you can iron yourself out quite a bit of the time, it certainly helps. Which particular muscles need to be stretched? Well, the particular ones that need to be stretched are those ones that are tight. You don't need to stretch out everything because sometimes things can be lengthened, like they're quite not... They can be made worse by stretching out. So you only need to really stretch out those areas that are tight, that you feel. And that you feel when you stretch out on them, that you feel that it helps you, because some do not need to be stretched out. But the bulk of the ones that I found with my clients, those tight areas feel so good when they are stretched out. So again, coming back to weak muscles need to be strengthened, and strengthening will often solve the problem. But if it doesn't, seek further help. And ultimately, remembering always, if you've tried to solve the problem, you may need to just seek further help. Sometimes if we've done ourselves a little pull of a muscle, we may need to give that a week or so to relax, just to give it time not train at all, allow ourselves to rest.

Maybe you can ice that while you're there. And then when it comes time, you'll probably find that that's quite tight. That's when you can get onto the foam rollers and and balls and things like that. Okay, so I am going to take some questions, and I do have some. It's right here. Okay, so somebody's given me some questions, and I've written them down. So I started jogging, then injured my hamstring. Will I ever be able to jog again? I would say that your hamstring was probably tight before you went jogging. Somewhat, you were tight somewhere. It might not have been your hamstring. It could have been up into your hips. It could have been your calves, but your ham string has ended up tight. So your thing is to untighten it again. So just be spending some time. Look, you might even find a nice Radox bath, which has got magnesium in it. You may rub some magnesium You're more on it, and you may allow it time to rest and recuperate. You may try rolling on a phone roller, but yes, you can run again. I would say, though, if that's a recurring thing, and every time you jog, you get ham string pain.
 
I would say that your dynamics, the way that you move are not probably very good. And so sometimes we will just move a certain way because that's how we've done in our whole life. But as a result, not moving with good dynamics, we do get injuries along the way. So that's where I'd go and see probably an exercise of physiologist who could look at my entire body and work out where I was putting the right pressure down, how my knee, how I impacted the ground And I put my foot down as I ran. So I would be looking at a whole pile of things is what I would be doing. So yes, you will run again. But you know what? It's good to be able to just make sure that you're running the right way so you don't get this injury back again and again. Another question I was asked is, what exercises can I be doing while recovering from a twisted ankle? Should I just wait it out or are there things I can do? What exercise can I be doing? Well, Let's say a twisted ankle or even a broken ankle, which I've had two clients now having broken their ankle.
 
Should I just wait it out? Or are the things I can do? Well, I think for that first period where you're acute still So for those first few weeks, I would probably stay off the ankle. There's a lot you can still do. So you can be, rather than standing up and doing stuff, you can be sitting on a fit ball and doing work on a fit ball. You can be doing lots of ab work, lots of core work, lots of back work. Maybe work on your other muscles while that particular twisted ankle, particularly if it's a badly twisted ankle, is out of action. I wouldn't be doing too much on it. I'd be doing, as soon as you twist the ankle, doing the the rest ice compression elevation for the first maybe two weeks or so. And then I would start to maybe see how I went being able to stand on it. I would just be very mindful of doing one legged stuff for maybe the next few weeks. So just maybe doing that with two legs, so rather than a one legged squat, doing a two legged squat and things like that, and lunges.
 
Just being able to work within what your body will allow you to do. So I always say to my clients, only do what your body tells you that you can do. So if your ankle's complaining with something that you're doing, just stop it and don't keep going. You're just going to allow yourself the time to be able to recuperate on that and then get back into it. So I hope that's answered all your questions or your thoughts. It's been great to have you join me today, and I look forward to seeing you next time. If anyone has any ideas or something that you'd like to know about, please let me know. Send me a little message, and I will get on to that the next time that we do a live like this. So you have a great night. It is take to seeing you next time. And remember, any questions you have in regard to this pod thing that I've just done, feel free to send in to me, and I can answer them then. Okay, bye-bye.