ISO PhysiotherapyBlogSport Physiotherapy
By Daniel Kerner Sport Physiotherapy

Hand Sports Injuries

With high rates of sports participation across Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, hand injuries are a common and often underestimated issue. Whether it’s a quick game of netball at Moore Park, a surf down at Bondi beach, or a competitive AFL match, the hands are constantly at risk of injury or overuse.

Injuries to the hand and wrist or fingers can be frustrating and have a serious impact your ability to work, train, or carry out activities of daily living. Understanding common types of hand injuries and how to manage or prevent them is essential, not just for athletes, but for anyone staying active.

1: Tendon injuries: mallet and jersey finger injuries 

Tendon injuries of the hand are common in sports and should never be ignored.

Jersey finger occurs usually in rugby or AFL, when the fingertip gets caught on an opponent’s jersey, causing a tear in the flexor tendon and making it impossible to actively bend the tip of the finger. Mallet finger affects the extensor tendon and usually results from a direct blow to the fingertip, leaving it drooped despite still being able to bend it downward. Both injuries require prompt assessment, as early splinting or surgical intervention is often needed for the best outcome. Following this rehabilitation through physiotherapy to regain strength, mobility and function is essential.

2: Volar plate injuries 

The volar plate is a thick band of ligament located on the palm side of the finger, providing stability during movement and activity. Injuries to the volar plate typically occur when the finger is forcefully hyperextended (very common in ball sports such as netball and basketball), causing the ligament to overstretch or tear. This often results in pain, swelling, and reduced mobility and strength in the affected finger. Management usually involves a period of splinting or strapping, but early rehabilitation is essential to prevent long-term stiffness and maintain joint function.

3. Distal radius and scaphoid fractures 

Both distal radius (wrist) and scaphoid (bone in the hand close to the wrist) fractures commonly occur after a fall onto an outstretched hand and are particularly common sports such as AFL and rugby.  Wrist fractures are diagnosed with x-ray and typically require a period of immobilisation in a cast. Early diagnosis is crucial for scaphoid fractures, as poor blood supply to the scaphoid can lead to non-union or long-term wrist dysfunction. Management of scaphoid fractures typically involves immobilisation in a thumb splint or cast, and in some cases, surgical fixation may be required to ensure proper healing.

4. Dequervian’s tenosynovitis 

Dequerivian’s tenosynovitis is inflammation of the tissue that covers the tendon that move our thumbs upwards and out to the side. It is commonly caused by repetitive use of the thumb/wrist and can be seen a lot in the tennis playing population. Treatment of Dequervian’s requires a period of immobilisation in a splint for aggravating activities,  followed by a period of strengthening to help build tolerance to higher loads put through the thumb in particular with racquet ball sports

These are just a few of the many hand injuries that can occur in the hand – if you are concerned about any hand injury you may have give us a call on 8068 7737 or book in online at isophysio.com.au or by clicking the button below.

indoor training
By Shylie Rimmer General Physiotherapy, Sport Physiotherapy

Indoor Training: How to Prevent Injury

When bad weather strikes, many clubs, people, and gyms take their training inside. For example, soccer clubs are finding indoor courts to practice on, and runners are using the treadmill instead of their usual outdoor sessions. Usually, the training is meant for the outdoors, so moving it to an indoor facility might cause some issues.

What kind of issues? Lately we’re noticing that people who are moving their outdoor training to indoor training are complaining of muscular tightness across their lower backs or legs, which often causes surprise or confusion.

Why is there muscular tightness?

When you have a sudden change in surface during your training, it can affect your body in many different ways. Usually, the change in surface ‘hardness’ causes the body to absorb a larger amount, or different type of, force to what it is used to. This can lead to an overload in certain muscle groups that are found in the legs or the lower back. Similarly, you can also experience tendon or joint injuries due to this change in load.

What can you do to prevent this?

Prevention is better than cure. As physiotherapists, our aim isn’t to cure you, it is to help you properly prepare your body in order to mitigate injury. Rather than treating an injury, we hope to condition your body in order to prevent injury. 

Here are some things you can do to prevent injury if you’re moving outdoor training to indoor training.

  • Make sure you warm up. Include band work for your glutes, as well as muscle activation exercises for your hamstrings, quads and lower back
  • Perform dynamic stretching exercises before you train. This helps prepare the muscles and tendons for higher levels of force
  • Ease into the training session. Starting off soft is a great way to prevent injuring yourself when your body hasn’t warmed up yet. As you progress into your training session, you can increase your intensity
  • Don’t forget the cool down. To do this aim for 3 x 45-60 second holds of your glutes, quads, hamstrings, and calves (just to name a few!)
  • Recover, recover, recover. Recovering between sessions is crucial. This can include strategies like appropriate hydration, adequate sleep (which should generally be 8 hours), having good nutritional intake, and ensuring you have enough rest before your next session

Are you experiencing muscular tightness?

For the next four weeks only, we’re offering Hakoah members and their immediate family 25% off your initial consultation, usually priced at $135. 

If you think you have injured (or might injure) yourself from a change in your training environment, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at ISO Physiotherapy. Head here to book an appointment or call us on 8068 7737 and mention this discount when booking. Visit us before April 13 to take advantage of this offer.

 

By Shylie Rimmer General Physiotherapy, Sport Physiotherapy ,

Sports Physio Tips for the Holiday Season

If 2021 has taught us anything, it’s that we all need a well-deserved break this holiday season. Whether you’re traveling interstate or staying close to home to celebrate the end of year, we know that you’ll likely wind down from sport and consistent physical activity during this time. So here are our tips to follow this holiday season, that’ll help prevent you from sustaining any injuries on your return to normal activity next year.

#1: Keep some form of physical activity

Sure, maintaining a consistent level of physical activity during this period is hard; you’re not in your normal routine, you’ll likely have many events on, and you might not be close to home or to where you normally train. But it’s important to attempt to keep some form of physical activity going, even if it’s less than before. If you were training heavily or playing sports a few times per week prior to the holiday season, even just being active 1 – 2 times a week will minimise injury on your return to sport following the new year period. Why? Because it’s usually the big jump from zero to 100 (in this case, over 3 – 4 sessions a week of activity) that can lead to sudden injury, as your body has adapted to your lower exercise load. 

#2: Stick to your program

If you’re currently rehabilitating an injury and are following a program, try your best to stick to it. We know how hard this can be over the festive period, but giving yourself time to continue your rehab will set a solid platform for the post-new year period, and make sure you don’t lose the progress you’ve already gained. Sticking to your structure as best you can will ultimately facilitate your return to sport in the timeline you had hoped for. 

#3: Think about the basics leading into your return

If you’re returning to sport following the holiday period, it’s important to remember the basics. You might be wondering what the basics are. By this we mean:
  • 8 hours of sleep per night
  • adequate hydration
  • adequate nutritional intake
Believe it or not, these three things will help you dramatically in your return to sport, and ensure you feel fresh and ready to go. That being said, a dramatic reduction of these three things can lead to injury so do your best to make these the non-negotiables.

#4: Don’t wait

If you’re unsure about something related to your rehabilitation, the best is to check in with your treating sports physio. Please don’t hesitate to contact us. We will be here intermittently throughout the festive period and are always happy to help!
You can book in a consultation or call us on 02 8068 7737.
how-to-find-the-best-sports-physio
By Shylie Rimmer General Physiotherapy, Sport Physiotherapy ,

Here’s How to Find the Best Sports Physio in Sydney

We’re inching closer to summer, lockdown has lifted and most people are back at the gym. This means that finding the best sports physio in Sydney is something a lot of people might be looking for right now. Whether you have an ongoing niggle or want to make sure you return to playing sport safely, there are a few requirements we know you’re probably looking for. You’d like them to be close for convenience, preferably recommended by someone you know who has tried them out, and of course a clinic that provides the level of service you expect. So why is it so difficult to find the best sports physio in Sydney? 

Sports physio guidelines

As healthcare professionals, we are responsible for following the advertising guidelines of the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA), which have strict rules and guidelines when it comes to advertising or promoting yourself in Australia. Some of the guidelines include not being able to claim themselves to be “the best”, the inability to compete in advertising, and not being able to make statements or claims such as being able to ‘fix’ people. 
For consumers, this is great. It protects them from the exploitation of healthcare and limits the possibility of being ‘sold’ a service that isn’t considered current best practice. People can sometimes be at their most vulnerable when seeking healthcare support, so these guidelines ensure that our physiotherapy clinics remain approachable and most of all, a safe space for patients to communicate and seek help.

Ways to find the best sports physio in Sydney

Here are some great resources to help you begin finding the best sports physiotherapist, and to get an overview of the most qualified physios Sydney has to offer. 

Referrals from your GP

If you’re looking for the best sports physio, chatting to your GP is a great place to start, as they can offer recommendations and referrals for musculoskeletal injuries or conditions. They’ll also likely explain the benefits of the Enhanced Primary Care Plan in claiming rebates for your sessions – a handy tip if you’re going to become a repeat patient. However, on the flipside, GP recommendations can be narrowed down to who they know or who their in-house physiotherapist is.

AHPRA

AHPRA is a great resource in finding a registered health professional of any kind as their policies and standards are in place to protect anyone seeking help. All practitioners listed on their website are verified in accordance with their regulations, while their search engine allows you to narrow down your preferences by profession and location, making it simple to find someone near you.

Online

There are two major paid directories that list the therapists in your area. Although, there’s not a lot of information on the quality of each practitioner, it does give a comprehensive index of choice.

Surgeons or Sports Physicians

Similar to GP’s, Sports Medicine professionals or Orthopaedic Surgeons can also provide a recommendation or referral to a local sports physiotherapist. This can be for pre or post-operative physiotherapy or an injury that requires physiotherapy intervention. 

Word of Mouth

There’s nothing like a recommendation from someone you trust. Speaking with others can be a beneficial way to find the best sports physiotherapist for you. Sometimes friends and family have needed to see a physiotherapist, or know of someone else who received great service, and through that, you might find the best sports physio in Sydney.

Make sure your physio is qualified

There are multiple ways to become a physiotherapist but there are some varying levels in qualifications and expertise. In order to practice as a physiotherapist, one must either complete an undergraduate bachelor degree in physiotherapy or a postgraduate degree in physiotherapy following undergraduate study. Then, one can complete further study in a particular area of physiotherapy: sports, musculoskeletal, neurological and many more. At ISO Physiotherapy, our physiotherapists either have an exercise science background or extra qualifications in strength and conditioning, which further improve our exercise prescription and rehabilitation skills.  Remember, we are always here to help! If you have any queries or need assistance, book in a consultation or call us on 02 8068 7737.
By Daniel Kerner Sport Physiotherapy , ,

What Are Shin Splints?

‘Shin Splints’

So, you’ve decided to take up running during COVID19. You saw some running challenges going viral, or maybe your mates have decided to challenge each other with the best running times. You see they’ve been running anywhere from 4-10kms. You got up off the couch, bought some ‘running shoes’ and started your running journey. You were doing well for a couple of runs, even matching your mates times. You were probably on your fifth or sixth run and started to feel pain in your shin/s. You thought you could shake it off, but the more you ran, the worse it got. Then you rested for a few days, tried again, same thing again. It’s the height of your frustration.

Does this sound familiar?

You could have the age old ‘shin splints’.

What are Shin Splints?

If we’re being super picky about it, the actual term ‘shin splints’ is more of an overarching term that encompasses a variety of different pathologies along the length of the tibia. These pathologies can include injuries to the surrounding tendons, the tissue near the bone itself or on the actual bone. The actual medical term for shin splints is Medial Tibial Stress Syndrome but shin splints has become colloquial for these injuries mentioned above.

The most typical form of shin splints presents as pain/discomfort along the final 1⁄3 of the tibia (shin bone).

The Stress Continuum

Remember my story above, our typical couch to 10km runner with no middle ground, this is our typical scenario. Shin splints occurs when there is overstress or overloading to the shin bone beyond what it can normally tolerate and without progressive introduction of this load.

Shin splints are part of what’s called a ‘continuum’. The shin gets loaded with a normal level of stress, then it gets overloaded, then it gets overloaded even more, then it eventually forms a stress fracture. People can move back and forth from stage to stage (besides the fracture stage), and generally we tend to see people in the clinic who are early along this continuum, with only a small to moderate amount of discomfort. On occasion, we do see the far end of the spectrum where the overload has progressed beyond the failure point leading to a stress fracture.

What could cause such an injury?

There are some pretty common things that we expect to see when a patient presents to us with shin splints, and these are all indicative in the story you tell us. Most often, the things that can cause shin splints include:

  •  Tight and/or weak calves
  •  A recent sudden spike in training load (like our couch runner)
  •  Hill running
  •  Inappropriate footwear and/or flat feet
  •  Overweight

Are you sure it’s actually Shin Splints?

Well, pop down to our clinic and we’ll tell you 😉

We look for specific signs and symptoms to diagnose Medial Tibial Stress Syndrome. These include: pain on the inside and bottom part of your shin bone, significant tenderness over a portion of the shin bone, pain during and after a run, in more severe cases- pain before/during/after a run and pain at night and lastly pain when hopping.

N.B: these are generalised signs and symptoms which are known to be associated with Medial Tibial Stress Syndrome. Please see your physiotherapist for an accurate assessment and proper diagnosis to ensure these symptoms are not related to something other than what is presented in this blog.

How do we fix it?

We look at a bunch of different things to help address this injury. They will all be dependent on your own personal circumstances and goals!

More broadly, things that we generally look to address are: load management/activity modification, addressing any causative factors (flat feet, footwear, muscle strength imbalances, joint stiffness, muscle tightness) as well as a gradual and monitored return to running program.

So, if this is you- head on down to our trusted physio clinic in Bondi and we’ll get you running pain-free again!

Yours in health, ISO Physiotherapy