Ergonomics
Arm pain and injuries are widespread. The causes can be related to sports injuries, work injuries or simply everyday arm use. Arm pain can occur due to either sudden, traumatic or repetitive overuse.
Arm pain can be a local injury, musculoskeletal injury or could even be referred from nerves in your neck (cervical radiculopathy). This can result in neck-arm pain.
The most common sources of arm pain include shoulder pain, wrist pain and elbow pain.
Cervical radiculopathy is a common source of referred arm pain. As mentioned earlier, your neck can refer to arm pain from another source. Cervical radiculopathy will respond positively to treatment at the source of the injury (e.g. your neck joints).
Professional assessment from a health practitioner skilled in diagnosing both spinal-origin and local-origin (muscle and joint) injuries (e.g. your physiotherapist) is recommended to ensure an accurate diagnosis and prompt treatment directed at the arm pain source.
The causes of your arm pain can be extensive and varied. Due to this diversity, your arm pain should be assessed by a suitably qualified health practitioner to attain an accurate diagnosis, treatment plan and implementation specific to your arm pain.
Left-arm pain can be an early sign of a life-threatening cardiac issue. A professional medical assessment that involves an accurate history, symptom analysis, physical examination and diagnostic tests to exclude a potential heart attack is essential to exclude this potentially life-threatening source of arm pain.
Please consult with your health practitioner, call an ambulance on 000, or visit a hospital emergency department to put your mind at ease.
Luckily, life-threatening arm pain is far less likely than a local musculoskeletal injury. Before commencing treatment, your health practitioner should assess and confirm arm pain caused by a localised arm muscle, tendon or joint damage.
The good news is that arm pain and injury will typically respond very favourably to medical or physiotherapy intervention when early professional assessment and treatment are sought. Please do not delay in consulting your healthcare practitioner if you experience arm pain.
With accurate assessment and early treatment, most arm injuries respond extremely quickly to physiotherapy or medical care, allowing you to quickly resume pain-free and normal activities of daily living.
Please ask your physiotherapist for their professional treatment advice.
Article by John Miller
The recovery time for a muscle injury depends on the severity of the damage. For a mild strain, you may be able to return to normal activities within a few days or a week. For more severe strains, recovery can take several weeks and even months. In nasty cases, surgical repair and post-operative physiotherapy may be necessary.
With professional assessment and the treatment guidance of your physiotherapist, most muscle injuries recover entirely.
To avoid re-injury, please ensure that you have adequately rehabilitated your body for a return to sport or work. Follow your physiotherapist’s specific instructions. Don’t engage in high-risk physical activity until your muscles have healed and strengthened appropriately.
The following options are available to your physiotherapist to assist the rehabilitation of your muscle strain. Please seek their professional advice prior to self-managing your injury to avoid aggravating your muscle strain. These are general guidelines only and should not be treated as individual treatment advice.
Physiotherapists help people affected by illness, injury or disability through exercise, manual joint therapy, soft tissue techniques, education and advice. Physiotherapists maintain physical health, allow patients to manage pain and prevent disease for people of all ages. Physiotherapists help encourage pain relief, injury recovery, enabling people to stay playing a sport, working or performing daily living activities while assisting them to remain functionally independent.
There is a multitude of different physiotherapy treatment approaches.
Your physiotherapist's training includes hands-on physiotherapy techniques such as:
Your physiotherapist has skilled training. Physiotherapy techniques have expanded over the past few decades. They have researched, upskilled and educated themselves in a spectrum of allied health skills. These skills include techniques shared with other healthcare practitioners. Professions include exercise physiologists, remedial massage therapists, osteopaths, acupuncturists, kinesiologists, chiropractors and occupational therapists, to name a few.
Your physiotherapist is a highly skilled professional who utilises strapping and taping techniques to prevent and assist injuries or pain relief and function.
Alternatively, your physiotherapist may recommend a supportive brace.
Many physiotherapists have acquired additional training in acupuncture and dry needling to assist pain relief and muscle function.
Physiotherapists have been trained in the use of exercise therapy to strengthen your muscles and improve your function. Physiotherapy exercises use evidence-based protocols where possible as an effective way that you can solve or prevent pain and injury. Your physiotherapist is highly skilled in prescribing the "best exercises" for you and the most appropriate "exercise dose" for you, depending on your rehabilitation status. Your physiotherapist will incorporate essential pilates, yoga and exercise physiology components to provide you with the best result. They may even use Real-Time Ultrasound Physiotherapy so that you can watch your muscles contract on a screen as you correctly retrain them.
Biomechanical assessment, observation and diagnostic skills are paramount to the best treatment. Your physiotherapist is a highly skilled health professional. They possess superb diagnostic skills to detect and ultimately avoid musculoskeletal and sports injuries. Poor technique or posture is one of the most common sources of a repeat injury.
Aquatic water exercises are an effective method to provide low bodyweight exercises.
Sports physio requires an extra level of knowledge and physiotherapy to assist injury recovery, prevent injury and improve performance. For the best advice, consult a Sports & Exercise Physiotherapist.
Women's Health Physiotherapy is a particular interest group of therapies.
Not only can your physiotherapist assist you in sport, but they can also help you at work. Ergonomics looks at the best postures and workstations set up for your body at work or home. Whether it be lifting technique improvement, education programs or workstation setups, your physiotherapist can help you.
Your physiotherapist is a highly skilled body mechanic. A physiotherapist has particular interests in certain injuries or specific conditions. For advice regarding your problem, please get in touch with your PhysioWorks team.
Kinesiology tape has a comprehensive array of therapeutic benefits. Because kinesiology taping can usually be left on for several days or up to a week, these therapeutic benefits are available to the injured area 24 hours a day, significantly accelerating the healing process from trauma, injuries and inflammatory conditions.
Kinesiology tape is a flexible elastic tape that moves with your body. The supple elasticity provides supports to your body parts without the tape slipping.
By supporting your body part, kinesiology tape can provide you with pain relief and muscular support to help control body parts affected by muscle inhibition.
Kinesiology tape potentially assists your muscle strength via physical assistance. It also provides tactile feedback through the skin, e.g. proprioception boost. This phenomenon may help both the non-disabled athlete to enhance their performance and hypotonic, e.g. children with low muscle tone.
Kinesiology provides a passive lift to your skin via its elastic properties. This vacuum effect allows your lymphatic and venous drainage systems to drain and swollen or bruised tissue quicker than without the kinesiology tape.
It is also thought that this same principle can assist the removal of exercise byproducts like lactic acid that may contribute to post-exercise soreness, e.g. delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS).
More info: Strapping & Supportive Taping
Practise the correct posture for standing, sitting, and lying down (as described below) to gradually replace your old position.
Article by John Miller
That's why proud and confident people stand tall with excellent posture. It's a habit! Standing with good posture looks fantastic, plus it's very healthy for your joints, muscles, bones, blood circulation and most importantly, your self-esteem.
How you hold your body in space is your posture. Your posture directly results from the postural habits that you commonly exhibit. You can choose to have good posture or poor posture. Gravity is your worst enemy while standing or sitting. You could also refer to this as your spinal posture, back or neck posture.
The good news for you is that you can quite easily change your postural habits and train your body to sit, stand, walk, and even rest in great postures. Good posture also places the least strain upon your supporting muscles and ligaments.
As humans, we move from posture to posture to avoid muscle fatigue and abnormal sustained tissue loading. Your best posture is your next posture! No single postural position is good to maintain all day.
Good posture:
Standing comfortably with good posture should feel natural and energy-efficient. Bad postural habits can cause a few muscular aches and pains for a few days during the early transition (posture habit change) phase. You may experience temporary joint or muscle discomfort or fatigue as your joints realign, ligaments stretch, and postural muscles start working. The good news is that your body will quickly adapt and feel more comfortable and strong in your new normal posture if you keep maintaining a good posture.
Plus, the upside is that you will be less likely to suffer pain, but you'll also look confident and feel fantastic!
The number one tip to achieve an excellent standing posture is to "stand tall"! All the muscles that you need to push you taller are the same ones that improve your posture.
Stand against a wall with your shoulders and bottom resting against a wall. The rear of your head should also lightly touch the wall without your face tilting skywards.
If you experience discomfort in the above test and can't quickly correct your posture, you may have some restrictions on a joint, ligament, or muscular movement. These problems can be rapidly assessed and promptly improved by your physiotherapist. Please consult them for advice.
Were you having difficulty maintaining a regular upright posture? You are probably suffering from reduced muscle endurance or strength. But these can be easily improved with some practice of the right exercises. Your physiotherapist is an expert in prescribing the best postural exercises for you in a stage-appropriate manner to help you improve your posture without causing unnecessary pain or injury.
Your physiotherapist may also advise a posture brace or prescribe some posture taping to assist you in achieving and maintaining a good posture quickly.
Contact your physiotherapist for posture advice specific to you and your needs.
Article by John Miller
Standing with your best posture not only looks and feels fantastic, but it's also very healthy for you.
Great posture is the best thing for your muscles, joints, bones, blood circulation, and self-esteem. That's why proud and confident people stand tall with excellent posture. It's a successful habit!
Good posture also places the least strain upon your supporting muscles and ligaments.
How you hold your body in space is your posture. Your everyday posture is a direct result of your regular postural habits. You can choose to maintain good posture or poor posture. The constant compressive weight of gravity is your worst enemy while standing or sitting. You could also refer to this as your spinal posture, back or neck posture.
It's pretty easy to improve your postural habits. But it is a habit, and researchers suggest that it takes 10000 attempts to learn a pattern. That's a good or a bad habit! Why not start the new you with a proud and perfect posture today?
Posture Improvement Products & FAQs
today?
Your best posture is your next posture! When we were hunters and gatherers, it was easy. Humans naturally move from posture to posture to avoid muscle fatigue and abnormal sustained tissue loading. But, with specialised jobs and postures, we tend to become static for too long these days, which causes postural fatigue, which leads to posture failure.
Good posture:
Your ideal standing posture should be comfortable, easily attained and maintained. Your best posture should feel natural and be energy efficient. Bad postural habits can cause a few muscular aches and pains for a few days during the early transition (posture habit change) phase. During this period, you can experience some temporary joint or muscle discomfort. These discomforts are related to mild joint adaptation as your joints realign, ligaments stretch, and postural muscles start working. The good news is that your body will quickly adapt and feel more comfortable and strong in your new normal posture if you keep maintaining a good posture.
Plus, the upside is that you will be less likely to suffer pain, but you'll also look confident and feel fantastic!
If I had to tell you one "switch" tip, it is simply to "stand tall" whenever you think about it. The muscles you use to stand taller are the same muscles that improve your posture.
Stand against a wall with shoulders and bottom touching the wall. The back of your head should lightly touch the wall. If you can't do this without pain or strain, you may have some restrictions on some spinal joints, ligaments or muscle tightness. Your physiotherapist can assess these problems quickly and improve these problems with some joint mobilisations, stretches, massage and strengthening exercises. Please consult your physiotherapist for specific advice regarding your posture.
Do you have difficulty maintaining your normal upright posture? You are probably suffering from reduced muscle endurance or strength. You can improve postural muscle fatigue quickly with repetitive contraction and periodic posture breaks. These habits will help to strengthen and improve your postural muscle endurance.
Your physiotherapist is a professional in prescribing the best postural exercises for you in a stage-appropriate manner. They may consider temporarily prescribing you a posture brace or applying some posture taping to assist you in transitioning, achieving, and maintaining the best posture.
Re-train your body to great Posture in just 20 minutes a day using the BackTone 4000 Posture Trainer.
Good Posture makes you look great to feel more energetic and confident. It also helps prevent injury and reduce pain.
We all want good posture, but it can be so hard to achieve. That's because acquiring a good posture involves learning new movements and changing life-long habits.
Knowing how to correct your posture is not enough to change your actual habit. Our body uses learnt motor patterns to perform everyday activities. When we sit, stand, walk or move - our body follows previously known motor patterns. If your body has learned to slouch - that's what it will do. BackTone helps you re-train that motor pattern.
The BackTone 4000 is the latest biofeedback device for re-training postural habits. Worn for short periods daily, BackTone beeps whenever the wearer slouches. Straightening turns the beep off. Users wear their BackTone during simple everyday tasks.
Wear the BackTone for about 20 minutes at a time during everyday tasks. Without even thinking about your Posture, you will straighten up whenever the BackTone beeps.
The New BackTone 4000 has:
Backtone Retrains Posture Habits Like No Other Strategy.
Allow Sufficient Time
Use a Train/Feedback/Practice Regime
Avoid Fatigue
User Friendly
Develop Confidence and Skill
BackTone gives you the tools to provide a comprehensive program that fundamentally changes posture habits.
More info: BackTone
The prescription of exercise appropriate to you and your injury or fitness level is one of the many professional skills of a physiotherapist. Whether you have suffered an acute injury, chronic deconditioning, or recovering from surgery, the correct exercise prescription is essential. That's why your physiotherapist's knowledge and skills will personalise your exercise dose.
Your physiotherapist not only is educated in injury diagnosis but also exercise physiology or the science of exercise. This training enables your physiotherapist to assess and diagnose your injury, plus also to prescribe injury, fitness or age-appropriate activities targeted to you now.
Your exercises shouldn't be painful. Would you please be cautious with some overzealous exercise prescribers who believe that the more painful the activity, the better? This isn't true—notably, the frail, immunosuppressed, deconditioned or post-operative person.
You'll find that your physiotherapist will thoroughly examine you and prescribe a series of exercises suitable for you in quantities that will not injure you further. Please seek an exercise expert, such as your physiotherapist, when you are planning your rehabilitation.
Without some simple exercises, we know that specific muscles can become weak. When these supporting muscles are weak, your injured structures inadequately support and predispose you to linger symptoms or further injury. You can also over-activate adjacent muscles that may lead to further damage.
It is also essential to understand that even if you are "in good shape", you may have crucial but weak localised or stability muscles. When you have an injury, you should perform specific exercises that specifically strengthen the muscles around your injury and the adjacent joints. Your physiotherapist will assess your muscle function and prescribe the right exercises specific to your needs.
The exercises prescribed will usually be relatively simple, and do not require any special weights equipment, and can be performed safely at home.
Your physiotherapist will prescribe your individualised dose or exercises. They are using their professional expertise to optimise your exercise dose. Would you stop taking your regular blood pressure medication because you were too busy or didn't think it worked? We would hope not!
Exercise, when prescribed by an expert such as your physiotherapist, should be treated as your recommended dose. Just like when you don't take your blood pressure medication, you can't expect the drugs to work if you don't take them as prescribed by your health professional.
So, next time you skip your "exercise dose", remember that you are not putting your health first. If you have any questions, please get in touch with your Physio Works physiotherapist for your best care.
