A new study has looked at whether getting a steroid injection for osteoarthritis (OA) in the knee is beneficial. This is a reasonably common procedure for OA and is often used to see if surgery can be put off.
In the study, a group of people aged 45 and over were given injections every 3 months for 2 years. There were 2 groups; 1 was given a steroid, the other given a placebo. In the group given steroid injections, the researchers found that not only did it not help with pain, it …

Happy Monday everyone, I just read this super interesting article on the website Science Daily which summarises the findings of a recent study on meditation and yoga. There were some pretty incredible results which I thought I would share. Check out some of the key points of the article below and click here to read the full article.
The most incredible finding was not just that meditation or yoga can help you feel relaxed, they can actually reverse changes to your DNA which are linked to depression and poor health.
Key points:

Stress causes inflammation …

A new study suggests that it might be! According to an article on the New York Times website this week, “People who regularly run or walk briskly appear to have healthier discs in their spines than people who do not exercise”.
The article cites a study performed in Australia where researchers recorded the weekly mileage of runners and compared that to MRI images of their lower backs.
They found that “the runners’ discs were larger and contained more fluid than the discs of the men and women who did not exercise.” These are both …

Knee pain. It’s not fun. But around half of us will suffer from it at some point in our lifetime. 
Question is, could sugar be making a common problem much worse?
What usually causes knee pain?
There are lots of different structures that can cause pain in the knee area; tendons, ligaments, cartilage and bone. Usually, you have to suffer a proper trauma to damage anything; it takes a fair bit of force to break bones or rupture ligaments.
Another way to get knee pain is a gradual build up over time. Reports show around …

There has been a lot of research over the years on the best way to warm up. Athletes want to know the right way to do it so that they can do their best performance when it counts. But it’s equally important to be able to reduce the risk of injury so you can run hard without hurting yourself. Is there a way to warm up that achieves both goals – optimal performance and minimal risk of injury? Should you do static stretching or dynamic stretching? Should you jog and …

One of the most researched topics in sports medicine is whether or not injuries can be prevented. Sport is big business these days, so there is a lot of interest in finding ways to ensure star athletes can perform at a high level without suffering injuries. With all this research has anyone found any proven ways to prevent running injuries?
A little over a year ago I spoke at seminar with a Physiotherapist by the name of Toby Watson. We were trying to compare the way Physiotherapists and Osteopaths treat common …

In my work with athletes, ranging from park runners up to World and Olympic champions, one of the key differences I’ve seen that separates the elite is that they know when to push themselves, and they know when to back off. They know that missing half a session because you’re concerned about an injury is better than pushing on, getting hurt, and then missing an entire week, if not more. The number one priority, no matter what event you are training for, is to get to the starting line in …