ONE SHOT: BRANDON SEMENUK’S UNREAL SEGMENT

We haven’t been able to stop watching this clip. Great music, amazing riding and filmed in a single continuous shot.

One Shot: Brandon Semenuk’s unReal Segment

LOWER BACK PAIN AND TIGHT HAMSTRINGS

The Hamstring is often involved with lower back pain.

The hamstring muscles down the back of the thigh are shortened in many people I see in clinic. I see hamstrings as crucial to our mechanical well-being and regularly evaluate their parameters on most of my clients.

Hamstring efficiency is paramount to lumbopelvic rhythm and sacroiliac joint function and healing / prevention of low back pain. (see: Principles of Manual Sports Medicine, Karageanes, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins)

Stretching the hamstrings to increase their functional range requires a slow and steady approach and maintenance of these muscles is essential to ideal function of the low back and pelvis. There a many ways to stretch the hamstrings and I generally like the ones that isolate this large, strong and often tight muscle group. Check out this two and a half minute how-to video here.

As with all things physical, listen to your body, take it slow and steady and seek professional advice if you are not confident with home exercises. Pain is a message from the body to the head that something is not well.

Take care, Pete.

IS IT HEALED BECAUSE IT DOESN’T HURT?

Recently I’ve seen an increased number of patients with low back pain after returning to work after the New Year holiday period. All these people are keen to be working and their back pain is a concern for their ability to work as much the acute pain.

To these people I reiterate: it’s not fully healed just because it’s no longer sore!!!
Let’s look at a fresh low back injury and getting it to heal asap.

We all begrudge the inconvenience of a painful dysfunctional body. Please understand a sudden pain from a low back strain/ sprain involves many similar structural elements to that of a sprained ankle. Ligaments, tendons, muscles, bony joints, nerves, blood vessels. The shape may be different but the tissues are not dissimilar. So: step one ICE, ICE BABY. Yes ICE, just like an ankle injury. ICE that low back. Twenty minutes ice on, forty minutes ice off.

So, just like a broken arm the healing isn’t finished just because the pain is gone. Most broken arms hurt for a week or so. Most plaster casts protecting the fractured limb remain on for six weeks. This is because for five weeks minimum after the pain has gone critical healing is still taking place. So with a low back injury when you feel better after the first few adjustments, remember it’s not fully healed just because the pain is gone.

EARLY WAVES

A great reason I am a chiropractor in Byron Bay. First light on Monday morning with a keen crew of surfers loving the feeling we get when our bodies move in synch with the waves. Good swell, good wind, good health, feels good. If you want more time in the water feeling loose consider chiropractic.