|
By Rachael Bird, Myotherapist Physios are legends when it comes to rehab. Seriously. But here's the thing—most of the time, they're not doing a lot of hands-on work. And that's where it might be worth thinking about what else could help. You're in pain, right? So you get given a bunch of exercises to do at home. But you're still in pain, which means you either can't be bothered doing them, or you do them and... nothing much changes. You're left thinking, "What's the point?" Now, here's the thing, a lot of people get brilliant results from exercises alone, which is fabulous. But for others, there might be more going on.  Why hands-on work might help: Exercises are great for training and building strength. But they can be less effective if the tissue underneath is tight, restricted, or guarded. Adding hands-on work; releasing tension, breaking down trigger points, addressing restrictions, could potentially create better conditions for those exercises to actually do their job. Let me use plantar fasciitis as an example. Everyone treats the calf and the foot, yeah? But there's a possibility that if your foot isn't working as well as it could, your body might compensate. You could start using the other leg more. That might create a postural imbalance. And then? Potentially some back discomfort. By the time your foot finally improves, those compensation patterns might still be hanging around. That's where things get tricky. What could potentially be going on: • Your glutes might be really tight due to the compensation → which could contribute to tightness in your calves • Tight calves → could feed into tightness in your foot • A tight foot → might mean you're overloading the other side • Overloading the other side → could shift your posture, create hip imbalance, potentially strain your lower back • All of this → might make you more susceptible to injury and recurring discomfort It's a chain reaction that sometimes treatment plans only touch one link of. This is where myotherapy comes in alongside physio: Here's something to think about—myotherapy and physio exercises could complement each other well. While your physio is training that area to work properly and regain strength, myotherapy is loosening restrictions and releasing tension. You're getting both angles at the same time. Hands-on work might create conditions for change, addressing those compensation patterns. Your physio gives you the tools to train that area. Together? That could amplify your results. One alone might work great for you. Both together? That could give you additional benefits, whether it's longer-lasting relief, faster improvement, or just a more complete picture of what's happening. Something worth considering: When you start looking at the broader picture instead of just that one painful spot, things might start making more sense. The area that hurts isn't always the root cause—sometimes it's dealing with the fallout of everything else upstream. Maybe your exercises aren't shifting things because the tissue needs some preparation first. Maybe your pain keeps returning because compensation patterns are still active. Maybe there's more to the story. It's worth exploring :) By Rachael Bird, Myotherapist Ever experienced a ‘burny’ pain, sharp or shooty sensations, or that strange mix of numbness, weakness, and pins & needles—and wondered what’s actually causing it? These are all common signs of nerve-related pain. What causes nerve pain? Well there are a number of reasons; but here are some possibilities:
 Where is nerve pain felt? Nerve pain can range from mild to severe and can show up in many areas of the body. Common regions include:
How does it spread (referral patterns)? Upper body (upper limbs):
Common nerve-related patterns Upper body:
Lower body:
Knee-specific nerve pain:
What can you do? Depending on what happened it is advisable to see your Doctor if this happened after an injury, fall, or if the pain is severe (if intense severe/ OR it affects Groin area/Bladder and or numbness in ‘saddle zone’- proceed to emergency care for further help) If it is not severe, or ongoing: You can always come and see us as Myotherapists or our Osteo for further help. We are quite well versed in most common nerve pain, and could offer some relief, or even resolve your pain. It’s important to understand that nerve pain is a gradual resolve due to its slow recovery rate. It would all depend on your symptoms, and how your body recovers. Additional self care: Again depending on severity, your best step is to stop what you are doing that caused this or is making it aggravated, drink some water, use a heat pack and seek medical assistance for if you need additional pain relief (medication). Try nice gentle stretching when its calmed down a little, it's very important not to push it. Try some walking, but not running/hiking as that can aggravate your symptoms and set 3-7 days of recovery depending on pain levels. For upper body - Avoid your head sticking forward past your shoulders and any overhead actions that tense up the base of the neck/upper shoulders areas (this still includes no running) For lower body - Avoid lifting especially when it's fresh, just keep the areas relaxed and rest them. DO NOT poke the area when it's angry. Use gentle massage, or work around the area to help soften the tension. How Myotherapy can help We can help by assessing the areas affected and depending on the initial assessment, we can provide some relief and make a plan to help get you back on track. We provide different technique options depending on your symptoms and presentation. These can include:
In some cases we can also refer you in the right direction for further assistance (e.g. when severe, or with specific type of symptoms). By Ethan Farr, Sports Myotherapist & Exercise Scientist This is a bit of a loaded question. There are a lot of factors that contribute to when you are able to get back to exercise post injury; the severity of injury, what kind of injury, your strength/conditioning pre injury and the kind of training you do just to name a few.  Strictly speaking you are able to get back into the gym while injured as long as you are training around said injury and finding no increase in pain or swelling the next day e.g. an injured leg you can still train upper body, however for training the injury there are 3 general phases of healing: the inflammatory phase, the proliferative phase and the remodelling phase.
What do these stages mean for you and getting back to the gym? Realistically these stages are not quite set in stone as you may be able to tell as there is quite a large range in timeframe that these stages can occur in but these stages aid in creating a general guide to what kinds of exercise should be programmed into your rehabilitation pathway. Generally within those first 3-7 days you should be focusing on reducing inflammation and pain so exercise isn’t your main concern at this point. However if you must, the exercise you should be doing generally consists of non-weight bearing exercise going through the range of motion of the injured site without increase in pain. Between days 4-21 you are looking at introducing more weight bearing exercises for things like ankle sprains this could be a little as walking for shoulders you could be looking at light band work trying to use the full range of motion of the joint with some resistance. In this stage a VAS pain scale can be used to guide your movements and exercise programming a VAS pain scale in this case would be a pain rating from 0 being no pain at all to 10 being incredibly painful, if the exercise you’re doing increases pain to the 7-10 ranges then it is not suitable for rehabilitation and could be doing more damage than good (No pain no gain need not apply to the rehabilitation pathway in this sense). The last stage of healing is a long lasting stage most people may not even realise they’re still in the process of healing when they’re in this stage, it can present as something as small as having a reduced ability to balance on one leg compared to the other or even just being a little apprehensive in doing certain movements. At this stage you are looking to incorporate increased challenge to the exercises programmed you are looking at including your bigger compound movements or increasing instability during the exercises, in this stage exercises will generally be guided by your daily life activity needs e.g. working a trade vs office work will have very different needs and if you play sport your exercises can be tailored to your sports needs. Getting back to the gym feeling better then you felt pre-injury is what I love about myotherapy and fitness so if you find all of this too complicated to follow but still want to get back to top shape after an injury, I would love to have the chance to guide your rehabilitation pathway and get you back to peak performance. Book with me on a Tuesday, Thursday or Sunday. Simple Wellness Myotherapy is located at Shop 12B/150 Kelletts Rd, Rowville VIC 3178. Additionally, you can contact us on (03) 8204 0970 to arrange an appointment today. |
Meet Our Team
Mel Simon (Senior Clinical Myotherapist) and Dr Sarah Varmalis (Senior Osteo) are available 7 days a week at our Boronia clinic. Archives
July 2026
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed