During the winter, our health focus tends to be around staying warm, getting enough vitamin C and D, eating hearty food and trying to stay clear of the coughs, colds, sniffs and snuffles and all other lurking illnesses.
During the summer, it is easier to feel and stay healthy.
We tend to get outside more, increase our exercise and we crave the lighter, leafier meal options.
Nevertheless, health during the summer is just as important- if not more so, to ensure we are promoting health that can sustain us later into the year.
Here are my top tips to promote health during the summer.
While muscular strength serves to stabilise and support our joints, as with everything, technique is the key. Poor positioning and repetitive movement has the capacity to create unnecessary friction and overload, and can lead to injury. For anyone who is a lifter, you know the addiction that develops.
Being sidelined by injury is not an option.
I have had so many questions, both in and out of clinic regarding the pros and cons of lifting. For many people, the prospect of weight training is daunting due to the element of the unknown, and some recent negative light that has been cast upon it - despite growing recognition as to its benefits.
I thought it was time to weigh in from the perspective of both osteopath and lifter.
In a society where a sedentary lifestyle is common, so too are low back problems.
Whether it be at school, uni, work, or home, the vast majority of us spend most of our day sitting. We do not utilise the full hip movement available, often resulting in tightness through the surrounding musculature. To combat this, in many occasions the lower back must work even harder. It is my experience, both in clinic and in my own life, that improving hip function can greatly improve low back pain.
Here are a few of my little tips to improve hip mobility, muscular tightness and ease your lower back pain.
From my personal experience in the gym and in the clinic, time and time again I see the importance of gluteus muscle strength. Improving glute strength has been seen to improve over all performance in weight training (like the dead lift) and symptoms of low back, pelvic and hip pain. Here are my top 3 workouts for your buttocks.
For most, we do something like horse riding because of the way it makes us feel. However, as with every sport and past time, injuries and compensations can occur within the body. Through my experience as an equestrian and osteopath, most horse riders experience similar types and areas of pain.
