Exercise 3 – Reduce Lower Back Pain

Osteopath Jamey Pemmelaar providing you with his third exercise to help reduce lower back pain and decrease stiffness. !Lower back pain is one of the most common complaints I’ve recieved as both an osteopath and personal trainer. It can restrict your exercise capacity, give you trouble sleeping and even inhibit your ability to live the lifestyle you want. It’s therefore important to get ontop of it as soon as possible to ensure a speedy recovery! The exercise shown is a great way to promote movement through your lower back therefore helping to increase mobility. So if your back is feeling tight before/after/during a workout (or any other time really), I’d suggest giving this movement a go. It’s important to maintain control of the movement so I’d suggest counting to 2 to lower your legs and return them to the starting position.  Key points to remember!1. Keep your knees together and both … Read More

Exercise 2 – Reduce Lower Back Pain

Osteopath Jamey Pemmelaar providing you with his second of three exercises to help reduce lower back pain and decrease stiffness.  !Lower back pain is one of the most common complaints I’ve recieved as both an osteopath and personal trainer. It can restrict your exercise capacity, give you trouble sleeping and even inhibit your ability to live the lifestyle you want. It’s therefore important to get ontop of it as soon as possible to ensure a speedy recovery! These two stretches shown are simple ways to limber up your low back. They can help increase your range of motion whilst helping to reduce pain, who wouldn’t want to give them a try? It’s important to note that you shouldn’t force the stretch too far as this may cause injury and that’s not what we are after.  Key points to remember!1. Hold each stretch for 30 seconds: I find taking a few … Read More

Wrist pain from exercise?

Do you suffer from wrist pain or discomfort while doing push ups? I’ve had a rapid increase in the number of patients coming in for treatment regarding wrist pain resulting from circuit type training. That got me thinking about developing a strategy to help prevent wrist pain from occurring because after all the best form of rehabilitation is a good serve of pre-habilitation. So here are my best three tips to help decrease the likelihood of wrist pain plus two actions to take if your starting to develop wrist pain as a result of exercise. Tip 1: Ensure correct technique When we load your wrist/hands into ‘flexion’, think hands in push up position, it essential we share the load throughout the hand rather than loading to one side. I commonly see people loading more to the outside of their hand (little finger side) than compared to the inside. Another technique … Read More

Fundamentals of progressive overload

What is progressive overload? Progressive overload is known as a gradual increase in stress being applied to the body during exercise. This occurs via small increases to one of the following factors; volume (weight/length of training), frequency (how often the training is performed) and intensity (how hard the training is). This put into real person talk is small increases in training allowing your body to adapt to the stress allowing improvements in the particular sport. When to apply? Most people think of progressive overload as a weight training principle however it can and should be applied to all areas of exercise, especially those in which you’re looking to improve on. It should be noted that progressive overload won’t happen in a straight line for example beginners are more likely to see rapid improvements when compared to an advanced counterpart therefore listen to your body when applying it. How much load … Read More

The Do’s and Don’ts for people with lower back pain:

Here are a few tasks I often get people with back pain to focus on trying to do when they are suffering from back pain. I hope they help you decrease your lower back pain! DO’s: 1.       Have positive pain beliefs!! “If you believe it then the mind can achieve it” – Ronnie Lott The mind is a powerful tool and yet it is one of the most commonly overlooked factors when it comes to pain management. Studies suggest that have positive pain beliefs (aka believe that your injury/pain will recover), you’re more likely to make a full recovery. 2.       Have a positive support network!! “Apes alone weak, apes together strong” – Caesar (Planet of the Apes) Building a team of people around you who positively support your recovery and beliefs can be very helpful. Whether it’s a relative encouraging you along your recovery or an Osteopath providing positive reinforcement … Read More

Best 3 exercises to reduce lower back pain

My best 3 exercise to reduce lower back pain and stiffness: Lower back pain is one of the most common complaints I come across among the active population, it often places restrictions on exercise ability and can stop people from living an active lifestyle. So I thought I’d share my best 3 exercises for helping reduce lower back pain an increase mobility. Below you’ll find links to videos of the recommended exercises alongside a brief introduction to each. I hope they can help you overcome your current lower back issue! Exercise 1: Standing Side to side low back mobility: A simple way to reduce pain and stiffness is to maintain movement through your low back. This exercise is especially good for those individuals who find getting up and down off the ground painful. Please see the video below for a demonstration. Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cox79M56kI0 Exercise 2: Low back stretches: Increasing … Read More