Monday, February 15, 2010

ACHILLES TENDON PAIN


If you search the literature and the internet you'll mostly find recommendations like rest, ice and anti-inflammatories, all useful advice, but, you need to treat the cause as well as the symptoms

The cause of the problem? feet, legs and hips that are out of alignment coupled with a less than perfect foot strike.

At achilles-tendon-pain you'll be able to get a copy of the 'Fix Achilles Tendonitis, Calf and Shin Pain' ebook in which I make every effort to help you work out which parts of your body are out of alignment. Having done that I provide you with strategies to get them back into alignment.

For instance if your feet are out of alignment you may need to spend time squaring off your pelvis and hips. If your pelvis is tilted back, rotated around or one hip is lower than the other the effect on your legs could be quite dramatic. Every time you walk, jog or run you put more pressure on one leg than the other. You predispose yourself to lower leg injuries.

If there is anything that sets my book apart from others it is the advice (and exercises) I give you to help you square your pelvis and hips up.

In fact I'm going to suggest you spend some time each evening doing the same sort of exercises that I'd suggest to my clients with back, hip and knee pain.

I recommend you find out whether you're lop sided by standing on a pair of scales.

This will provide you with more clues about why you're persistently tearing muscles on one side of your body, as well as clues to which exercises you need to do to square yourself up. which exercises to do.

If you have Achilles tendonitis, calf or shin pain there's a good chance your foot strike is not quite right. I suggest ways you can go about finding out exactly what's happening as your feet strike the ground..

Don't even think of compromising on shoe quality. I provide you with advice about getting the right running show for your feet.

There are recommendations in the book that you may not have heard of and which could just make the difference between you fixing yourself up quickly or still having Achilles, calf and shin pain for another 12 months.

Imagine what that's going to do to your training program?

I'll let you in on a secret. There is synergy in involving a range of treatments and therapies. There is no one fix. There is a high likelihood that you'll benefit from the combined effect of the small gains you get from a wide range of modalities.

And another secret, from someone who's had Achilles tendonitis, calf and shin pain: constant icing and constant dorsi-flexing.

The therapies will help speed up the rehab process - no doubt about that: - physio, chiro, massage and bowen therapy.

Anti-inflammatories will help 'cool' it down, remove the pain and speed up the rehab process, but don't think for a moment that because the pain has gone away you've fixed the cause of the problem. You've masked it.

If you're taking anti-inflammatories don't even think of putting undue pressure on the injury, you'll only make it worse - without you knowing it. Don't go out running as though its better. If you do you'll be back where you started quick smart.

In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned and move heaven and earth to square yourself up and remove the cause of your Achilles tendon, calf and shin pain.

John Miller

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Tuesday, February 2, 2010

FIX BACK PAIN

Just been to the printer and picked up 50 copies of my new book, Fix Back Pain. I'm as pleased as punch.

I've been slaving away at it all January; had a heap more drawings done and added chapters on neck pain, shoulder pain, wrist pain, hip pain, knee pain and calf, Achilles and shin pain.

It's looking good and will form the basis of revisions to the ebooks available from http://www.globalbackcare.com/ and the CrookBack Clinic practitioner's training program.

The insight I had while writing it was that you can't fix a fitness problem with a medical solution. Too many people are traipsing through surgeries when all they need to do is get down on the floor and do a few exercises to square themselves up.

This is neither medical nor rocket science.

A very high proportion of musculo-skeletal dysfunction is personally generated by bodies that are weak and tight.

In a way that's good news because you can loosen and strengthen your body off without much effort.


In fact if you do this exercise every night for 40 minutes, there's a good chance you'll feel a lot better in a month. 2 months and you should be jumping out of your skin.





Like this one, most of the exercises to loosen your body can be done in front of the TV, either sitting up or lying down.

In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned and don't try to fix fitness problems with medical solutions.

John Miller
http://www.globalbackcare.com/

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posted by John Miller at 4:16 AM 0 Comments

Friday, January 22, 2010

ACHILLES TENDONITIS

I've been working on my Achilles a lot. This week I stumbled on a neat trick.

For some time I've been wearing neoprene anklets to keep the Achilles warm. I work from home so I can wear them around the house. Some night's I've worn them to bed.



A mate of mine suggested icing the Achilles, which I've been doing after my walk/run. I filled an empty cool drink bottle up with water, placed it in the freezer and then rested by Achilles on it.

It's OK.

BUT, the last couple of days I've started putting a couple of ice cubes down the back of the neoprene anklet.

While I'm working the ice slowly melts. I don't know where the water goes and I don't care.

I think it's working.

In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned, and if you've got persistent Achilles tendonitis, get yourself a pair of neoprene anklets and slip ice down the back of them.

John Miller
http://www.fitandhealthyonline.com/
http://www.globalbackcare.com/

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posted by John Miller at 3:40 AM 0 Comments

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

ACHILLES TENDONITIS

Health Blogarithm 28th December 2009

I've had chronic Achilles tendonitis for nearly a year. It's a real bastard. It gives me the shits. It's the second time this has happened. Five or six years ago when it happened it took over a year to go away. It really stuffed up my fitness program.

I had it for a year on one Achilles and just as that one came good, bugger me it went to the other Achilles.

Running aggravates it. The stepper is a bit less so and I've had to take up walking - for god's sake.

I've taken advice from all sorts of people.

  • Stretch your calf muscles before you run. Every man and his dog tells me this, but it's a well nigh useless piece of advice because the problem is not a tight calf muscle. I've tried it and it doesn't work
  • Strengthen your calves. One fitness trainer of an elite level rugby club said, 'If you can't do 40 heel raises (heel going up and down on a step) on the trot your calf muscles are too weak.' I can only do about 20 and heaven knows how I've tried. As anyone who's done heal raises will attest, it burns like hell after about ten.
  • Get orthotics - but at $800 a throw I'm reluctant to make the move. Plus I'm more interested in knowing what the cause of the problem is. It is not a lack of orthotic!

Nine months ago I was at a chiropractic stand at the FILEX fitness convention in Sydney and stood on two scales, left leg on one and right leg on the other. The weight on the right scale was 6 Kg heavier than the weight on the left scale.

So, I gave the chiros the benefit of the doubt and went to a local chiro for a few sessions. But all he had to offer was the pea-shooter treatment and a bit of bullshit new-age muscle testing. Another couple of hundred bucks down the drain. He didn't even give me a decent crunch.

I thought it might have been a tight left buttock, believing, as I do that the cause of the pain is rarely at the site of the pain, and that the tight buttock muscle was twisting the pelvis, placing pressure on the right Achilles. I find it harder to sit up straight when I've got my right leg under my left than vice versa.

So I've been doing one of my buttock stretches much more regularly. It doesn't seem to have helped

BUT, I picked up Pete Egoscue's book 'Pain Free' again yesterday to see what he had to say about the matter. (I brought the book away on holidays, just in case I found time to read it. I made time.)

Of course, the cause is not at the site of the pain, and as I suspected it's driven by a pelvis that's out of alignment, not by the tight left buttock muscles but by some other muscle(s).

I wouldn't have a clue which muscles they are, and I don't think it matters much.

The advice Egoscue gives is to do a particular exercise, feet up against the wall – bottom in as close as you can get.

Well yesterday I spent a couple of hours doing this exercise - with a couple of variations - reading a book and dozing off.

At the beginning of the day my calves were so tight I was hanging out of a calf massage. The first few steps when I got up were painful. Earlier in the week Christine and I had been to the Australian Institute of Sport for the ice and heat treatment. The heat treatment comes from the very hot spa out there, with very powerful jets. It's the cheapest physical therapy in Canberra.

It felt good at the time; didn't work.

Bingo! Today after yesterday's session doing the wall exercise it felt a lot better. The first few steps didn't hurt, the pressure was off. So I did 15 minutes slow jogging on the treadmill in the hotel before breakfast and another 15 minutes before tea.

I'm happy to report it feels OK, in fact better than OK, it's the best it's felt for over a year.

Now, I know that a single swallow does not s summer make, but I'm optimistic.

I'll continue doing the exercise and report back.

But I'm not going to go at it like a bull at a gate. I'm going to take it easy, some very light jogging, mixed with walking.

If I wasn't on holidays I'd provide you with a copy of the exercise in this post.

Half rat power
I've made a decision, from now on, any exercise with the heart rate less than 100 bpm is exercising at half rat power, so from now on any walking only gets half a point per minute on the aerabyte scale.

Today's aerabytes: jogging with heart rate just over 110 for 30 minutes equates to 60 aerabytes. Big deal, But I'm on an Achilles rehab program while I'm on holidays, down here at the Novotel in Wollongong.

Still it's holidays, we're only having breakfast and tea - and missing out on lunch.

In the mean time stay tuned, highly tuned and read Pete Egoscue's book, 'Pain Free' available from www.fitandhealthyonline.com

John Miller
www.globalbackcare.com

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Sunday, December 20, 2009

CAUSE OF BACK PAIN

I've been searching the internet for information about the causes of back pain.

Most of the information is vapid and useless, like this.

Statement
'There isn't usually an underlying condition causing back pain - nothing shows up in tests and nothing is permanently damaged.'

Comment
That's because the tests are useless. You can't tell what's caused a herniated disc by looking at an X-ray. Of course there is an underlying cause, but if you don't know where to look for it you won't find it!

It's a bit like Alice coming to the fork in the road and asking the Cheshire cat which road she should take. His response, 'Where are you going?' Her reply, I don't know.' His response again, 'Then any road will get you there.'

For most doctors the cause of back pain will be something like a herniated disc. Do they have an answer to the cause of the herniated disc? Nope. You're back where you started.

That's because only rarely will a doctor check to see which of your muscles are tight and which are weak. Only rarely will a doctor prescribe exercises to get you stronger and more flexible.

It is muscles that pull bones out of alignment.

Statement
You're more likely to develop simple back pain if you:
- stand, sit or bend down for long periods
- lift, carry, push or pull loads that are too heavy,
- have a trip or a fall
- are stressed or anxious
- are overweight.

Comment
Yep, sounds right, but rarely will you see that the principal cause is a lack of strength and flexibility.

Certainly the over weight one is right. If you're 20Kg overweight you're setting yourself up for musculo-skeletal dysfunction

As for lifting and pushing loads that are too heavy. How heavy is a computer mouse, or a library book, of a bag of fertilizer? These are loads that regular folks ought to be able to lift without coming down with a crook back. These are the sorts of loads which get blamed for the underlying lack of strength.

Bad workman have always blamed their tools.

It's bunkum. You need a good strength and flexibility training program. I've got just the one for you.

In the mean time stay tuned, highly tuned and remember, you can't solve a fitness problem with a medical solution.

John Miller
http://www.globalbackcare.com/

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posted by John Miller at 9:24 PM 0 Comments

Monday, December 14, 2009

BACK PAIN SITTING DOWN

It's a strange thing indeed when people who complain about back pain sitting down, keep sitting down.

They ask the OH&S staff for a new $800 chair.

Their back doesn't get any better. Duh! Like most bad workmen, people with back pain are still blaming their tools.

Sitting down is one of the main causes of back pain, because if you do it for long enough, sooner or later your calf, hamstring and buttock muscles will shorten, tilting your pelvis back and moving the bones of your spinal column out of alignment. You start to feel pressure on your ligaments, tendons, muscles and discs. More pressure, more pain.

You end up looking like this.


The natural 'S' shaped curve of your spine has become a 'C' shape.

Repetitive strain injuryOrganisations have an obligation to protect people from the biggest repetitive strain activity in modern workplaces - sitting down.

These days there is no obligation for people to be required to sit down all day. They can do their work just as well standing up, or kneeeing.

All they need is the right office set up. Like this.

In fact, without much trouble you can get people to stand up, put a box on their desks to accommodate the keyboard and the mouse and let them get on with their work. In the long run they'll bless you. You prevent the continued shortening of calve, hamstring and buttock muscles. Pelvois and vetrebrae stay in better alignm,ent. Pain goers away. Miraculous!

No-one ever said you had to sit down all day.

It's got to the point where if people aren't prepared to take a bit of time out, in company time, to do a few exercises each day, you can't afford tho let them sit down.

So, if you've got back pain sitting down: stand up!

In the mean time stay tuned, highly tuned and if you suffer from back pain sitting down, start doing the exercises outlined in the Fix Back Pain ebook at http://www.globalbackcare.com/

John Miller

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posted by John Miller at 5:01 PM 0 Comments

BACK PAIN AT HOME

If you get back pain at home it's a symptom that occurs when the bones of your spinal column are out of alignment.

The pain is telling you that ligaments, tendons and muscles have reached their pain threshold.

The pain is telling you to get your body back into alignment.

Now, it's not going to happen over night, but there are definitely exercises you can do to get your pelvis and your spinal column back into better alignment. Absolutely.

Here's an exercise that will be particularly helpful.
Start doing the hip crosss-over over and over again while lying on the floor. You can do it while you;re watching TV, just stick a cushion under you head to make it more comfortable.

Build up so that you can spend 5 minutes one side and the 5 minutes the other for 40 minutes in total.

If you're pelvis and spinal column is so far out of alignment that you can't put your knee and foot on the floor, rest them on some books, and gradually during the course of the session keep taking books away as the muscles around your hip gradually loosen off.

You may be surprised at how soon you can rest with your knee and foot on the floor.

This is an every-night-exercise and in about 2 months your back should be feeling a whole lot better.

This is a fix, but it's not a quick fix.

Just ask yourself how long it's taken for your back to become out of alignment? Years, decades. Now just give it a couple of months every night to fix the damage.

Here's something else you can do. While in bed, lie on your back and put your lower legs on a couple of pillows. That should bring relief.

Of course there's a lot more you can do to speed up the rehab process. You'll find more of the exercises you need to do in the Fix back Pain ebook available from http://www.globalbackcare.com/.

In the mean time stay tuned, highly tuned and remember, it's a big ask expecting to get better by having someone do something to you; sooner or later you have to do something to yourself.

John Miller

http://www.globalbackcare.com/

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posted by John Miller at 4:37 PM 0 Comments