Category: Education

Performing a cooldown is important following any physical activity, and gaming is no different!

A good cooldown will make you feel relaxed. A great cooldown will initiate your body’s healing process and help to prevent injury in your future.

The Esports Healthcare: Gamer Stretches are a comprehensive, static stretch routine that targets the muscles and joints involved in gaming—both PC and console—that will help you recover and limit your risk for injury.

In this video I will show you a good 10-15 minutes stretch routine that you can do daily to help break up your long day in front of the screen and also improve the longevity of your gamer career by keeping you pain free from head to toes!

Being a gamer involves prolonged sitting in front of the screen and normally with high tension due to the nature of the gaming world.

Most gamers would experience more pain and tension compared to normal office workers.

It is therefore more important and crucial for gamers to set up their workstation as ideal as possible and ensure regular stretches and exercises to help improve the life of this very competitive career.

Constant high stress/tension level and prolonged static position will lead to many health issues and many have already started experiencing them such as having back, neck, hip stiffness and regular headaches, wrist, elbow, thumb pain are just some of the examples.

Here are some easy hacks that you can start doing to make gaming 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 optimize your workstation at home as close to ideal as possible so make sure you check them out!

2. If possible, set a room designated for gaming only. In that way you will have a specific space at your house that you can relate as a “game 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 at every break you get while gaming. Here’s a video that will help break up your long gaming day 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 outside your esport. This will help keep your cardiovascular fitness and general strengthen and joints mobilities but it will also significantly help reduce your mental load as well.

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, I 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 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 us at any of our clinics near you or drop an email at info@capitalphysiotherapy.com.au. We also provide online physiotherapy consultation for your safety and convenience during this pandemic.

Waking up with a sore neck is not the way you want to start your day. Today, I’m going to show you some tips and tricks on how to solve this problem.

Many people, especially in 2020 are starting to experience neck pain due to working from home for a prolonged period of time. It is therefore important for me to share some tips and strategies today to help ease your neck pain in the morning.

I’ll show you a quick 5 minutes routine to stretch out your neck throughout your long working day and ease your neck pain and neck stiffness. I will also show you some tips to be considered, such as good pillows and also a comfortable position for your neck during sleeping. 

So that you can have a good sleep and wake up refreshed and without any neck discomfort in the morning.

There are a few key factors that are a common cause of neck pain.

1. Poor Workstation Setup

Working at a desk is a common cause of neck pain, often because you are accommodating to your workstation rather than the other way around. For instance, many people strain to see a computer monitor that is too far away, too low, too high, too small or too dim. This compromises good posture. 

Our head is about 10% of our body weight, which is equivalent to a bowling ball! When your neck is bent to 45 degrees, your head exerts nearly about 23 kilograms of force on your neck. 

In addition to straining joints and muscles in your neck and shoulders, the pressure affects your breathing and mood. To alleviate this stress, redesign your workspace to encourage well-aligned posture. 

2. Long Working Hours with No Stretches

Flexibility and stretching exercises can expand or preserve the range of motion and elasticity in affected cervical (neck) joints, and thus relieve the stiffness that accompanies pain. 

As a general rule, neck stretching is best done every day, and some stretches can be done several times a day.

3. Sleeping on the wrong pillow

Neck pain induced by sleep can be because of using the wrong pillow. Sleeping on a wrong pillow can leave you with neck pain for weeks. Also, improper sleeping position could contribute to neck pain.

Keeping in mind these stretches are just the basic exercises that we start off with, to fully fix your neck discomfort you will still need to continue to progress to harder and more functional strengthening exercises 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 trusted physiotherapist will be able to give a full neck 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 physiotherapist appointment and related concerns, visit us at any of our clinics near you or drop an email at info@capitalphysiotherapy.com.au. We also provide Telehealth Consultation for your safety and convenience during this pandemic.

Due to this pandemic more and more people are forced to work from home. We are seeing more and more clients that come into our clinic due to poor ergonomic setup. Hence, we think it’s important to address this issue today.

Desk & Chair

• Desk is about 90 degree to your elbow
• Desk Height is 68 cm to 72 cm above floor

Chair

• Hip/ Knee/ Ankle 90 degree
• Arm rest +/- as long as arm rest are not blocking your chair from moving forward towards the desk
• Ideally arm rest under the table
• Lumbar support? Where should you position it?

Keyboard and Mouse

• Keyboard positioned directly in front of you,(letter B should be right in front of you)
• Wrists maintained in neutral position – elbows should be at 90 degrees, forearms parallel to the floor
• Keyboard legs are down (legs up causes excessive wrist extension)
• Keyboard positioned 60 to 80mm from the edge of the desk
• Mouse positioned directly next to the keyboard – elbows should be by your side when performing mouse movements
• Wrist kept in neutral when using the mouse (i.e. not inclined or tilted) – consider alternating the mouse from the left to right hand side to minimise overuse injuries.

Monitors

• Monitor/VDU positioned directly in front of you and the keyboard        
• Monitor/VDU positioned approximately one arm’s length away from you
• Eye level falls within the top 1/3 of monitor screen when looking straight ahead
• Minimal reflection on screen – if there is glare, try tilting the screen slightly downwards
• If using 2 monitors have screens at the same level, set up as above and sit directly in front of the middle of the screens – avoid twisting your head and torso to view screens

Both eyes can see about 140 degrees, but the area where both eyes can see is only about 120 degrees, the area of focus is even smaller to about only 60 degrees. So you do want to make sure your monitor is within the “focus area” of your field of vision for both eyes.

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 physiotherapy appointment 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 physios to be thorough in their assessment, as well as giving them enough time to give you treatment on the same consultation! 

For questions and other physiotherapy concerns, visit us at any of our physio clinics near you or send us an email at info@capitalphysiotherapy.com.au. We also provide Telehealth Consultation for your safety and convenience during this pandemic.

The role of the hip flexors:

The hip flexor muscles include the iliacus and psoas major. Together these muscles act to lift the thigh up closer to the abdomen, which is the movement known as hip flexion. Excessive tightness of the hip flexor muscles is more likely to occur in certain people. It can lead to biomechanical abnormalities and be a source of pain. 

People that are more prone to hip flexor tightness:

People that have occupations that involve prolonged periods of sitting are prone to hip flexor tightness as the hips are in a sustained flexed position during sitting. People that engage in regular exercise such as running and cycling are also more prone to tight hip flexors. Sportspeople playing kicking sports such as soccer and football are also more likely to experience excessive flexor tightness as the kicking motion involves repetitive hip flexion movements. 

The consequences of tight hip flexors: 

Tight hip flexors can be a local source of pain around the hip joint which can be present during prolonged periods of sitting or during sporting activities that utilise the hip flexor muscles. Excessive tightness of the hip flexors can change lumbo-pelvic posture as it pulls the pelvis into an anteriorly tilted position. Increased anterior pelvic tilt increases the curve within the lumbar spine (lordosis) which in turn can cause the facet joint of the lumbar spine to be compressed more and tighten up surrounding back extensor muscles such as the erector spinae; this can lead to associated lower back pain. 

Tight hip flexors and altered alignment of the pelvis can also lead to over-activity of the hip flexor muscles and altered neuromuscular activity of the gluteal and core muscles which can further be a source of hip pain. 

Keeping in mind these exercises are just the basic exercise that we start off with to fully fix your knee injuries you will still need to continue to progress to harder and more functional exercises in order to feel pain free.

Here at Capital Physiotherapy, our physiotherapists are the experts in helping you to fix your hip/groin 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 an 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! 

If you have physiotherapy concerns and questions, don’t hesitate visit us at any of our clinics like in Footscray suburb or you may do online booking with us. We also provide Telehealth Consultation for your safety and convenience during this pandemic.

Waking up with heel pain in the morning?

Do you experience heel pain first thing in the morning when you take your first few steps going to the bathroom?

If you are experiencing pain at this part of your heel, you most likely have what we call Plantar Fasciitis or the new term as we were told it’s called “plantar fasciopathy” or “plantar fasciosis”.

The plantar fascia is a thick, weblike ligament that connects your heel to the front of your foot. It acts as a shock absorber and supports the arch of your foot, helping you walk.

Too much pressure on your feet can damage the ligaments in turn causing this structure to be inflamed or degenerate faster making it painful and stiffness.

Symptoms:

• The pain is usually worse in the morning when you take your first steps out of bed
• if you’ve been sitting or lying down for a while, the first few steps that you take will normally be painful
•  Climbing the stairs can be 
• After prolonged activity on your feet causes it to flare up and People with plantar fasciitis don’t usually feel pain during the activity, but rather just after stopping.

So how can we fix this problem?

1. Ice and anti inflammatory drug
2. Change footwear with good support and heel pad 
3. Golf ball stretches
4. Calf stretch

Here at Capital Physiotherapy, our physiotherapists are the experts in helping you to fix your foot 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! 

If you have questions and concerns about physiotherapy, don’t hesitate to give our South Yarra physio at 0401 865 333 or you can do online booking. We also provide Telehealth Consultation for your safety and convenience during this time.

If you are experiencing pain right at this area while you are running and sometimes it travel up to your leg then you most likely suffers from what we call Posterior Tibial Tendonitis.

This problem is commonly seen in runners or hikers.

This muscle is located in the deep compartment of the lower leg, and is a key stabilising muscle of the ankle, supporting the medial arch of the foot.

So what causes your muscles to start hurting?

1.  Incorrect technique used over a period of time (running or hiking)
2.  Flat Feet; People who suffer from these problems either have flat feet to begin with or develop a flat foot if this issue is not properly fixed and it can lead to multiple other ankle injuries when left untreated.
3. Weak ankle stabiliser muscles– because the ankle stabiliser are weak they are unable to cope the the amount of load that you are trying to put them through with your activities hence they started getting injured
4. Weak Calf muscles;The bigger muscles group are suppose to do most of the work such as running or long distance hiking however if they are weak, your stabiliser muscles will have to do dual task both stabilising the ankle joint and also helping to do the actual movement, so inevitably, it gets overworked leading to injuries

How to fix it?

1. Hence to go about fixing this problem we first need to correct your technique 
2. Then we need to improve your flat feet issues 
3. Strengthen your injured ankle stabiliser muscles (Tibialis Posterior)
4. Strengthen your calf muscles so they are strong enough to do the activities you want them to do! 

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

Our Physiotherapy Clinics in Melbourne