At FisioNostra not only do we deliver trigger point therapy but we also educate our clients about TrP therapy and how they can do it themselves using Trigger Point Performance Kits and individual products.
The more we do it the better the results our clients can achieve for themselves and gain independence with the tools we recommend.
Here is just one comment directed at the TPT page on Facebook:
“Your Ultimate 6 kit helped get me through Boston [Marathon]. Sciatic pains for 2 weeks before. Ran pain free. Thank you!”
NFL athlete Michael Clayton was also shown how to use the TPT products and was impressed.
For more info on TPT products contact Ato Chandler via our contact page, Twitter or feel free to look me up on Facebook.
FisioNostra and some of the best Strength and Conditioning coaches in the UK and beyond are actively involved in the 100 Rep Challenge a non-profit project which has now gone live online at http://www.100repchallenge.com.
The 100 Rep Challenge is a FREE resource which aims to help you develop a long term perspective on health and fitness. The challenges laid out there range from health giving joint mobility to extreme anaerobic workouts. If you want to get straight there go to http://www.100repchallenge.com
Here is how the creator of the 100 rep challenge Rannoch donal of Edinburgh, Scotland describes the Challenge: The One Hundred Rep Challenge is……..
A simple practice designed to establish an re-enforce positive, enduring habits
Suitable for everyone, young & old, active & sedentary, everyone can benefit by using 100 reps to work on the areas of their mental & physical wellbeing that require attention. We approach everything as scalable” – rather than one size fits all, the 100 Rep Challenge helps participants find the best route for themselves
The Challenge is a personal one, about accountability and the value of consistent effort. It can work as an individual or group effort but the focus remains a personal one. The Challenge can be used by teachers, coaches, trainers, athletes, families and groups of any kind who require a starting point for a simple daily practice.
Almost any physical activity can be adapted to the Challenge. 100 is simply a number, a starting point, a catalyst. The drills themselves can be about anything that promotes a sense of ownership regarding our health and wellbeing. Mindfulness breathing, stretching and mobility, strength training, rehabilitation –- all of these modalities have their place.
At FisioNostra our aim for those with injury or back pain is to help clients develop a long term perspective on their recovery. By long term perspective we mean seeing beyond simply aboloshing pain or a return to full activity, we want our clients to raise their expectations for the future. Often an injury can be the impetus for big and better things in ones life. Whilst pain free and back to "normal" is the primary aim we want there to be an understanding that creating a physical environment for our bodies and minds to thrive in is altogether more effective, enjoyable and satisfying. The side effect is faster and more sustainable recovery, pain is reduced, pain is removed and function is regained in a time frame unique to our bodies own ability to recover and regenerate. The "100 rep challenge" mentality is a cornerstone to the success of creating that environment.
I really wanted to ad this post which was originally made by Jonathon Lewis at Balance Performance Physiotherapy where he commented on an article from the New York Times on self-massage products. The journalist has consulted a number of sources including sports massage consumers, foam roller users, a triathlon coach, an Ironman triathlete and chiropractor, author of “Self-Massage for Athletes” Rich Poley, and the founder and creator of Trigger Point Performance Therapy products Cassidy Phillips.
The article is based around the following: “Devices for self-massage have become more common as more people compete in endurance sports and, more recently, as the recession has made professional rubdowns look prohibitively expensive. Trainers usually recommend a massage every week or every other week for people who are training for a marathon or triathlon, but the costs do add up: according to the American Massage Therapy Association, the average price of a massage is $63 an hour.”
The article’s quote from TPT founder Cassidy Phillips puts self massage and going to see a professional masseur in the context of oral hygiene. “You brush away some plaque yourself,” he said, “but you still go to the dentist for a thorough cleaning.”
Exciting news for FisioNostra and great news for serious trainers and trainees in Europe. In partnership with Balance Performance Physiotherapy we will be providin masterclasses and seminars on the War Machine across Europe.
War Machine® Pulley Training System – The War Machine was specifically designed for body weight training and core training and is the most versatile full body training tool of our time. No other “suspension type” of trainer can provide resistance via body weight, freeweight and resistance band all in one small package.
Challenge yourself. PULL THE PIN! Disengage the pin and the War Machine turns any workout into a dynamic, multi-planar body assault. Whether you’re an MMA fighter, surfer, football player or just somebody that wants to get into shape and live a healthier life, the War Machine will get you where you want to go quicker and with a smaller investment than anything on the market. Life’s A Battle …Prepare For War®
For those that have not had the opportunity to be shown how to get the most from the grid foam roller by getting in touch with us at FisioNostra and having a soft tissue session with our Sports Masseur Ato Chandler, here is one of several clips Trigger Point Performance have produced in addition to the more indepth DVDs.
To book a session with our Sports Masseur so you can learn how to manage your own soft tissue health fill in our contact form call +34 695 972 662
First, I am a Registered Physiotherapist and must state that my interest in this opinion piece is for the relevance of Kettlebell for people who already have back, neck and/or shoulder problems.
More specifically for those who are chronic or long term sufferers. Also, this is quite a long rant, but please bear with me because the general issue of how we tackle chronic back pain in this country is a serious one and often badly tackled and underfunded.
Anyone with an acute back problem should avoid strenuous exercise until they have been properly assessed by a Registered Physiotherapist or appropriate medical practitioner.
Second, you may well ask, what on earth is Kettlebell? This dynamic exercise and training form is currently making itself felt throughout the fitness industry and claims the patronage of many celebrities, (Jennifer Lopez, Matthew McConaughey, Gerri Halliwell and Penelope Cruz are often mentioned), Russian Special Forces, boxers, cross-fit trainers, MMA* fighters and football clubs.
Raging through the US for the last decade with crossfit trainers and fitness adherents, the disipline has been in the UK for the last few years and it has now reached a prominence that is hard to ignore.
Its origins are not entirely clear but lifting weights to improve strength and fitness goes back as long as boys have wanted to show off . Kettlebells have been claimed by the Russians, Turks and Scots, (who apparently trained with small church bells!). The kettlebell or Girya resembles a cannonball with a handle. Incidentally, they do not ring. The only sound created is the heavy breathing of the user and the occasional clang as the bell finds the floor early!
Weights vary from 4Kg to 60kg, although typically 8kg, 12kg, 16kg and 20kg are used by normal mortals. The more capable and ambitious ‘kettlebellers’ are called Gireviks, Russian for weightlifter.
Now, it is not my business to promote Kettlebell as a practise, there are plenty of more able people out there who can do that, but must declare that I am an enthusiastic participant who has benefited, and has done so at a number of levels.
What is the technique?
A good whole body mobilisation is essential. Some moderate aerobic exercise such as jogging, star jumps, squats and arm swinging, shoulder, neck and quads stretches take place over several minutes. Now I know that the evidence for stretching before exercise is now felt not to help in preventing injury, but you will need 6-10 minutes of cardiovascular ‘warm-up’ for the session that follows.
For the chronic back pain sufferer, I think this gives hope. All too often, rehab programmes concentrate on passive stretching and mobilisation, rather than a return to CV health and strength. Personal and professional experience tells me that someone with a 20 year history of back pain is afraid of the consequences of exercise.
The attitude is ‘better the devil we know’ and all that. Maintaining the status quo is better, in the minds of many, than ‘stirring things up’, which is often the experience they have starting a new exercise programme. It takes a lot of courage to start a regime knowing that it may well make things feel worse to begin with.
However,the important word there is FEEL. I spend much of my clinical time agreeing with patients when they say, “but won’t that exercise make it hurt more?”. They don’t expect me to agree, because previous advice will often have been about caution and ‘don’t do too much’.
Being frank about what will happen is often more to do with the therapist making their own life easier; management of the patient rather than management of the condition. Both are needed, but it’s the emphasis that may need looking at! Please remember, hurting more does not necessarily equate to damage!
Of course, there are risks, but with proper guidance from your Physiotherapist or health advisor and in conjunction with your trainer, doing damage or causing any permanent worsening of symptoms is unlikely.
The trick is to take the right amount of time for the individual and this is where group classes can be weak – frankly, even the best trainers can’t be expected to tailor programmes for each person in a class of 20+. Don’t blame the class leader though, take personal control and think of how you get around the issue.
So, what is the answer? Well, one answer is to take personal tuition to begin with. Yes it can be expensive, but over say 4 weeks, it’s cheaper than an overnight stay in a hotel. Put bluntly, I know plenty of my chronic back pain patients do that fairly regularly ‘as a treat’. So treat yourself to being well and it may improve your mood and mental well-being as well – radical stuff, eh?
While excellent for promoting mobility in the joints at each end of the collar bone, the upper ribs and neck, this exercise needs to be done with good technique. This often means using an approriate weight. I have seen people struggling with too much weight, the technique suffers with the consequent risk of neck strain.
I should also say that the leaders of the class that I attend are very hot on this and encourage swapping weights during a set – the emphasis is on keeping going safely rather than emulating Atlas.
The static presses and exertions of ‘regular’ gym weights, fixed or free, do, in my view, carry the risk of over-extension of the joints and point pressure on vulnerable structures such as the rotator cuff insertion, acromio-claviclular joint, knee and shoulder cartilages.
There are plenty of other basic forms, but check those out on the kettlebell sites, (see examples below), as there are variations and styles that should suit most needs.
So, after all that, is it good for your back? Please remember that the back, (or spine), to physical therapists also includes the neck.
Succinctly, if you are well but unfit and want to become so, then yes. If you have back problems, then proceed with some caution!
However, as with all exercise forms, make sure that you seek out well qualified trainers and yet be strong enough in yourself to proceed at your own pace. Their job, in my view, is to provide the knowledge, support and skills, plus the encouragement to keep going and to draw out your motivation.
In conclusion, I like this regime because it is dynamic, relatively low impact and uses the joints through their whole range. It flows, is as much about balance and technique as it is about strength, yet improves power.
Kettlebell is an excellent mix of aerobic exercise and fat-burning, with muscle toning that doesn’t produce too much bulk.
It is egalitarian and friendly. My experience is that the men and women who go are not there just to look wonderful, but to improve themselves generally. Sounds a bit twee, but I mean it. Posers are at an absolute minimum and overt testosterone is low. There is a good mix of abilities, ages and, lets say, weight categories and there is an old-fashioned helpfulness, at least in the class I attend.
Go on, give it a go. As previously stated, check with someone qualified to judge but you may well be surprised by how much you will benefit!
Quite some time back I was asked by Aerobic & Fitness Barcelona to present their first Kettlebell Workshop and Masterclass in Spain. I knew it would be a great opportunity for Fisionostra Barcelona to get its name out there and also to show them what kettlebells are really about so I jumped at the opportunity. Paid flights to Madrid, luxury hotel accomodation the scene was all set for a great weekend. It was'nt the first time I've been to Madrid but funnily enough it all seemed knew again. The masterclass and workshop went down really well it was a hard-working and enthusiastic group. There were fitness trainers from everywhere from Granada, Malaga, Galicia, Zaragoza all the corners of Spain so it was a great challenge for me to understand their different them and of course for them to understand me speaking in Spanish. The whole weekend went well, next step lets conquer the whole of Spain!
So the good news has finally come we have finally launched our on-line retail shop packed full of all types of fitness tools and gadgets to help you get into the best shape possible. We will be supplying Kettlebells, jungle gyms, Indian clubs, Trigger Point Therapy gear really good rehabilitation tools, fitness DVDs and books, sandbags and much more. We hope to provide something very different to what is being offered here in Spain and we only want to offer you the public, products which we strongly believe in and which we have also used and can honestly recommend to you as fitness and medical practitioners ourselves. I mean there is no way I would want to try something out without it being recommended to me and we just dont do that either we only want to provide to you what we feel is great stuff and which we have found to give the best results. So take a look and if there is anything you see and or have any questions for us please do not hesitate to get in touch.
Fancy running with 30% less bodyweight? How about 60%, or 75%???
It's gotta be like flying like the wind, no?
Well, I'll let you know at some point next week, as I've signed up for a Balance Performance Physiotherapy World Record Club where some of my former collegues are trying to see who can beat the world record for the mile that is testing the new generation treadmill called the G-trainer. In the video Raphael is giving us a short burst of speed on one of only seven G-trainers there are in Europe
On this device you run on a treadmill, but sealed from the waist down in a kind of air-tight pod. The G-Trainer changes the air pressure inside the skirt so you effectively run with almost zero impact -- or, in effect, with less bodyweight. It's a bit like the effect you get running in a pool.
Quite apart from its obvious benefits if you are rehabing from injury, a number of professional athletes like West Ham United Footballer, Keiron Dyer was using it to be able to add mileage and or quality work without the risk of injury from increased impact. The G-Trainer website includes this quote from Alberto Salazar (Director of the Nike Oregon Project and former marathon world record holder): "By reducing my athletes’ effective body weight using the G-Trainer, they have increased their training volume by up to 25%, without increased risk of injury. This has enabled our runners to compete at their highest level ever."
Thanks to Chris Willoughby and Jonathon Lewis at Balance Performance Physiotherapy who supplied this post for us at LondonGym
Trunk and shoulder strength...stability, control, power and agility through a full range. Remember this is part of the mans daily conditioning session, its not a performance in itself. His intention is trunk/core/shoulder girdle strength and control.
For those who dont believe the pectorals and lats are involved in shoulder stability watch this a few times and observe closely.
