Body Works Sports Physiotherapy

Inner Thigh Strengthening

Body Works Sports Physiotherapy 604-983-6616 233 West 1st St #420 North Vancouver, BC V7M 1B3 http://www.body-works.ca

Do you love to run hike or play soccer? Try our simple strengthening exercise that will help you run stronger, show more control and avoid injury.

Hi this is Dana Ranahan from Body Works Sports Physiotherapy in North Vancouver and I'm here today to show you an exercise to work on strength around your hips and pelvis area.

One of the big things we have when we return to sports or running, soccer, various activities is an ability to control our pelvis on top of our leg. So when we stand on one leg, can we stay neutral and not lose control. Then we need to be able to kick our soccer ball, or to run, whatever it might be.

So the exercise we're going to do today is for your inner thigh and we're going to work on grabbing a piece of band and now I'm going to work on standing on one leg and trying to maintain my balance as I bring the band back and forth. Trying to keep control through the pelvis. Working through the full range and usually I add some core activation too. Breathing out, engage my core, breathe in, come back out, breathing out, engage my core, breathe in come back out. And you work on controlling this leg while this leg is moving and then switch to the other side.

How Is Your Balance? Single Leg Squat

Body Works Sports Physiotherapy 604-983-6616 233 West 1st St #420 North Vancouver, BC V7M 1B3 http://www.body-works.caHow is your balance? Try our simple balance exercises with suggested professions to help improve your balance and simple movement control to help you in your favourite activity or sport. Call us if you need more specific help. www.body-works.ca Hi this is Dana Ranahan from Body Works Sports Physiotherapy in North Vancouver and today I want to show you an exercise to improve your balance and control. So this is the time of year where a lot of kids and adults are returning to sports, such as soccer, hockey et cetera. And there is more risk for knee injury. So if you are returning to activity this is a really big one for you to do.We've had a previous video before where we worked on balancing on one leg where you're trying to work on maintaining your pelvis and your alignment through your knee. And you can challenge your balance by adding a wobbly surface.Now I want to add a couple things for you to try to progress your balance. So when you're on the one leg, as you see I'm wobbling a little bit. If I add in a little squat, I want you to work on trying to do a little mini squat, keeping your pelvis and hips level and your knee tracking over top of your foot. So we avoid the knee turning in or any twist in the pelvis.So working on movement control in this way is very difficult. Sometimes hands on the hips can help. If you want to challenge it even more you can add your eyes closed which make it a little harder for me to do.

Hip Strengthening Exercise

Body Works Sports Physiotherapy 604-983-6616 233 West 1st St #420 North Vancouver, BC V7M 1B3 http://www.body-works.ca

Do you want to be stronger to hike walk or run? Try our simple glute strengthening exercise to help you control movement better. No equipment required!

Hi this is Dana Ranahan from Body Works Sports Physiotherapy and I want to show you an exercise to help with strengthening your hips. And it's a little bit of a progression from a previous exercise that we've used in the past. One of the big things we need to work on running, hiking, even skiing and walking, is trying to keep your hip strong when you're standing on one leg. And often the pelvis tends to twist a bit when we're on one leg which can create knee and foot pain. Sometimes inner knee pain, collapse of the foot, hip pain et cetera. So we're going to grab a pice of wall and we're going to bend one knee, focusing on the right leg, strengthening the glute now. Previously, we did a simple exercise where we pushed into the wall and worked on holding and we're going to do the same sort of thing but now in this position, we're going to do a little mini squat. So sliding my body up and down against the wall. Now trying to make the glute work as I'm doing a quarter squat. Most important now here is we ensure there is good alignment hip, knee and foot. That your knee stays over your foot and there is no turn in of your knee or turn out your knee in space. So working with quarter squats, knee pushing into the wall, trying to aim to do about 10 to 15 repetitions if you can or stop as it starts to get fatigued. This will build endurance as you're moving the leg for walking et cetera. So give this a go. If you have any other questions or need any specific guidance check out our website or give us a call. Our website is www.body-works.ca.

Body Works Sports Physiotherapy 604-983-6616 233 West 1st St #420 North Vancouver, BC V7M 1B3 http://www.body-works.ca

Are you enjoying some nice summer walks? Try out top 3 stretches to do before you go for a walk to help you move better and feel better.

Hi this is Dana Ranahan from Body Works Sports Physiotherapy and I'm about to just go for a nice walk on this gorgeous sunny day. So are you getting out for walks this summer to enjoy yourself? I'm going to show you the top three stretches you should do before you go for a walk just to ensure your body is moving well.

So first off, I'm going to get you to do a nice reach up towards the sky and you can do a little bit of a side stretch. Side to side to open up some of the work in here. So when you walk you can get a nice movement through your side. You can also add a little bit of a stretch through your hip, keeping your buttocks tucked in, raising up as you stretch. That helps to open up a bit through the hip flexors. That's number one.

Second stretch would be stretching your quad where you're going to grab your foot, try to maintain your knee in alignment and hold for about 30 to 60 seconds each leg just to work on some mobility in through those legs.

And finally I'm going to do a little quick hamstring stretch. Keeping my pelvis neutral and sticking my foot up, sinking back to get some stretch through the back of the leg.

So give those three stretches a try. Hope you enjoy your nice walk and get out and enjoy the lovely weather. If you have any other questions, check out our website at www.body-works.ca

Open Arm Chest and Shoulder Stretch

Are you enjoying summer? Riding bike, gardening or any other activities? Listen in for a simple stretch to help you feel better and avoid trouble. 

Body Works Sports Physiotherapy

604-983-6616

233 West 1st St #420

North Vancouver, BC V7M 1B3

http://www.body-works.ca

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Do You Have Shoulder Pain?

Body Works Sports Physiotherapy

604-983-6616

233 West 1st St #420

North Vancouver, BC V7M 1B3

http://www.body-works.ca

Do you have shoulder pain? Do you want to strengthen and stabilize your shoulder girdle? Watch our video on how to balance the muscles to control the movement of the shoulder blade which helps the shoulder and rotator to be stronger.

Let us know if you need help with a shoulder or upper back issue!

Ok, we’re going to look at an exercise for controlling upper rotation of the shoulder blade which helps you to work on raising your arm your arm better. If we look at the muscles around the shoulder blade, we want to look at how rhomboids and mid fibres of trapezius are working. So if we do an arm raise in this position here, you can see how the shoulder blade rotates down and as I push on it, hold there, you can see the shoulder blade really wants to drop down. And then relax. If we work to bring the shoulder blade up, into an upper rotation, so we kind of turned the palm up, so it’s like a thumb up position, and now you can see that the shoulder blade is in a more upwardly rotated. And hold there, don’t let me push. That’s a bit harder to do, but definitely hold the shoulder blade more upward. And if we bring the arm up a little further, a little closer to the ear, now we’re going to get a little more lower trapezius activation. We have that thumb pointing up and you can see some work happening through the lower trapezius there as we’re doing that activation. Don’t let me push down, yeah good activation through the lower trapezius

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Do you have visual strain or headaches?

Body Works Sports Physiotherapy

604-983-6616

233 West 1st St #420

North Vancouver, BC V7M 1B3

http://www.body-works.ca

Do you have headaches or eyestrain at computer?

Watch and try out our simple video. Check your saccadic eye movement to see if your eyes fatigue easily and need to retrain this control. This will help you read more easily. 

Contact us to determine if this exercise is appropriate for you. Individual assessment and exercise prescription is much more effective.

Hi this is Dana Ranahan from Body Works Sports Physiotherapy and today I want to show you a simple vision exercise that you can work on at home. We see this often in the clinic with people who have had concussion injury, hits to the head or sometimes with whiplash or neck pain. So our eyes, our upper neck and our inner ear all coordinate together to help us do all the complex things we do. What we’re going to look at today is called saccadic movement or quick eye movements that are required to do things like reading, react or whatnot. So I’ve put up some sticky notes on the wall. You can use various things for this, but I just used sticky notes and I kind of put them at eye level for me and then a vertical strip as well. So if you’ll come around, what I’m going to get you working on at home. Trying to stand back probably two to three feet, and so when I’m looking at the centre, those two sticky notes on the side are almost in the peripheral of my vision and I’m going to work on a quick eye movement back and forth, trying to keep my head steady, as quick as I can. Back and forth trying to control it. Now if this is difficult at all, you can individually test your eyes by covering one eye and trying the saccadic movement side to side, eye movements side to side on one eye for 30 to 60 seconds and then switch eyes, saccadic movement 30 to 60 seconds and then do both eyes together again. This helps to train each eye individually and then the two eyes work together. The other movement you can work on is a vertical saccadic movement. So again, if you want to do on one eye at a  time, we work on up and down quick movements, trying to keep the head level while your eye moves so your head is not moving with you and repeat to fatigue usually try for 30 to 60 seconds each one. Give that a try at home, saccadic eye movements, really trying to control your posture and that should hopefully help you to train your eyes to be a bit stronger. If you have more questions, or you want some specific advice on an injury you’re dealing with please feel free to call us because a specific exercise for what you need is really the most important. Check out our website for more information at www.body-works.ca.

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Want a Stronger Core? Try Our 4 Point Kneeling Arm Weight Shift Exercise

Body Works Sports Physiotherapy 604-983-6616 233 West 1st St #420 North Vancouver, BC V7M 1B3 http://www.body-works.ca

Need a stronger core? Try our simple video. To determine if this is right for you, come on in for a physiotherapy assessment at our clinic. We are happy to help you get the best exercise program for your body.

In hands and knees position find a neutral spine so that your arms are underneath your shoulders so your hands land underneath your shoulders, knees are underneath your hips. We want to find a neutral spine position so that the upper back doesn’t get too saggy in through here. That you can kind of lift up between your shoulder blades like you’re going to push away. And then we want you to work on now alternating weight shift through the arms. So as you breathe out, think about keeping your spine and shoulders strong, your core comes on and then unweight one arm and try to maintain your spine neutral so it doesn’t twist. Good, breathe in, lower down, breathe out alternate sides. Keep the left shoulder strong now, lift the right hand. Good now try to keep the spine neutral as you do that repeating, probably 10 to 20 times until you start to get a bit tired.

How to Get Stronger Walk, Run and Ski With More Ease

Body Works Sports Physiotherapy 604-983-6616 233 West 1st St #420 North Vancouver, BC V7M 1B3 http://www.body-works.ca

Are you wanting to run or ski with more control and strength? Wanna carve the slopes with more ease? Try our easy strengthening exercise. Simple to do at home. This will help you be stronger and move better.

Hi this is Dana Ranahan of Body Works Sports Physiotherapy and today I want to show you an exercise to strengthen your hips and help improve your performance for sports and athletics, like skiing. So grab a stretchy band or or a piece of Thera-band and we wrapped it around our knees, just above our knee so when we pull out it helps to activate our glute muscles a little bit. So the exercise I’m going to get you working on is coming into a little bit of a squat, where you’re going to let your hips sink back a little bit in space and then we’re going to work on side stepping back and forth. So when I go to move my foot, I want to work to stay strong here as I’m shifting my weight. So side stepping back and forth, really working to stay solid and controlled through your upper body and keeping the hip, knee and foot in line so that I’m not allowing my knee to come in. As I go wide I’m kind of pushing the pressure out through the side. This a great exercise to help strengthen your glutes. Sometimes if you need, you can use a mirror to watch yourself and as you side step, you should feel like your weight stays relatively central. So as you work on this, you’ll feel the muscles in the lateral part of your hips working. Great hip strengthener, give it a try. If you have any other questions, check out our website at www.body-works.ca

Do You Need Stronger Legs and Hips?

Body Works Sports Physiotherapy 604-983-6616 233 West 1st St #420 North Vancouver, BC V7M 1B3 http://www.body-works.ca

Do you need stronger legs and hips? Do you want to be able to ski or run longer with better endurance, form and less fatigue? Try our simple wall squat with band around the knees to help strengthen the quads and gluts, abs, core.

Hi this is Dana Ranahan from Body Works Sports Physiotherapy and today I want to show you a great strengthening exercise you can do at home. This will help you in all kinds of ways. Skiing, hiking, running etc. So grab yourself a little Theraband or a stretchy band. We have these ones in the clinic that are pre cut so they’re all one piece. Alternately, you can get some and tie a knot to the right width, you want it to be about leg width apart, when you’re standing evenly on your feet. And we’re going to put this band up on our knee, just above the knee joint and in this position now, I’m going to come to the wall, bring my feet way out so that my weight can be back against the wall and I’m going to do a bit of a squat. Really working to keep my big toes on the ground and my knees in line over top of my feet. So my kneecap centres over my second toe effectively. Now in this position, think about keeping your hips connected to the wall and this is a simple wall squat you can maintain. If we want to add a little bit of extra work for our glutes, we can work on a little bit of a pull out here with the band. So try to maintain your wall squat, little openings between the band and you’ll feel it working in your glutes quite heavily. So usually I’d maybe work 10 to 15 repetitions here and remembering to breathe and engage your core as you do it, I’m too busy talking. But on your own, you would breathe out, core on, breathe in, come back, breathe out, core on, breathe in, come back. So give that a go at home. That’ll help you strengthen up your hips and legs for skiing or any activities you want to do. If you have any other questions, give us a call or check out our website at www.body-works.ca

Squat Knee Pain

Body Works Sports Physiotherapy 604-983-6616 233 West 1st St #420 North Vancouver, BC V7M 1B3 http://www.body-works.ca

Hi everyone, this is Steven from Body Works Sport Phsyio, here today to talk to you about squatting and knee pain. So if you find that you get pain with squatting, one of the good potential contributors could be a result of your mechanics. So a lot of the times, people end up squatting and keep very upright and do all the bending through the knees and all the weight bearing to the toes. So you can see as I do that, I put a lot of sheer force, a lot of pressure to the knees which can be a bit agitating. So the next time you squat, try thinking about keeping more weight through your heels and bending a little bit more through the hips. So looking like so. You can see my knees travel much less forward in this position. Putting much less pressure in through the knees. So give that a shot. See if it takes away some of that pain in your knees while you’re squatting and if it doesn’t feel free to come in to see us and we can see if we can fix that up for you. Thanks everyone. Have a good day.

Hip Strength Exercise For Walking, Running Or Hiking Body Works Sports Physiotherapy 604-983-6616 233 West 1st St #420 North Vancouver, BC V7M 1B3 http://www.body-works.ca

Do you like to walk hike or run? How about snowshoe? Controlling your hip and pelvis position is important to be strong and avoid injury. Try our simple strengthening exercise at home to improve your strength and stability and run or walk with more ease. Hi this is Dana Ranahan from Body Works Physiotherapy in North Vancouver and I want to show you an exercise today to work on strengthening your hips. This is really important for all you people out there that like to hike, walk or run. So when we stand on one leg, we want to work on the ability to maintain our pelvis neutral so that we don’t get into a kind of a twist or shift through our hips which usually leads to trouble with the knee or sometimes our back. So basically, I’m going to get you to come against the wall and we’re going to keep our hip again the wall, shoulder against the wall and this left leg now is the one I’m going to work to strengthen and I want to keep a good line through my hip, knee and foot, so that my knee is not turning in and that my hips are level here, so there’s no hike or drop. And in this position now, I’m going to get you to push your knee into the wall and we’re going to work this opposite glute muscle to work to stabilize the pelvis neutral. So pelvis square, shoulder and hip against the wall, pushing the right knee into the wall and maintaining a hold, engaging this muscle to work on stability. This is a really important exercise to help stabilize your stance position. So usually we hold this for 20-30 seconds something like that or until you hit fatigue and then repeat it. So endurance is what we want here. The ability to hold for longer. So give that a try. It should help you run and walk a little stronger without pain. If you have any other questions, check out our website at www.body-works.ca

Single Leg Bridge

Try our simple runners hip and core strength exercise - single leg bridge

Body Works Sports Physiotherapy

604-983-6616

233 West 1st St #420

North Vancouver, BC V7M 1B3

http://www.body-works.ca

Are you starting a new running program? Want to improve strength and stability for running? Try out simple runners drill for hip and pelvic stability with core activation. Alternating legs with bridging. This will help yo be more stable and stronger with running and more efficient.

Hi this is Dana Ranahan from Body Works Sports Physiotherapy in North Vancouver and today I want to talk about a little exercise you can do to work on control around your pelvis and hip. This is a great drill for runners. I know a lot of you out there now are starting back with a running regime now that it’s the new year or training for the Sun Run, so this would be a great exercise for you to try. Grab a mat or a piece of floor, have a lie down and I have a small foam roller here or you could use a yoga block or a rolled up towel between the knees and we’re going to have a lie down on our back. We’re going to put this rolled up towel or foam roller between our thighs, so you have a little bit of a squeeze, and then we’re going to do a little lift through our hips which we call a bridge. Now this is a starting position and if you can maintain this with relative ease, then the progression would be to work on lifting one leg. Trying to maintain neutral pelvis. So that when I lift, I don’t allow my hips to drop, I try to keep my hips level and lift, breathe out, engage my core and then alternate sides. Breathe out, engage my core and lift the opposite leg trying to maintain stability. This will do a great job for working on control through your hips and pelvis and it will hopefully make you much more stable and strong when you run. 

If you need any specific help, please contact us to set up an appointment so we can personalize a program for you.

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Neck Pain In Sitting

Body Works Sports Physiotherapy

604-983-6616

233 West 1st St #420

North Vancouver, BC V7M 1B3

http://www.body-works.ca

Hi everyone, this is Steven from Body Works Sports Physio, here today to talk to you a little bit about neck pain and sitting posture. So a lot of people end up getting pain into the back of the neck because they’re working at the computer from sitting  into this posture here or your chin’s forward and you get a little bit of a closing down into the back of the neck. So one simple exercise is just to take two fingers, place them just on your chin like so, and then just push your neck or push your chin straight back. You can see how that just lengthens the back of my neck here and just reduces any compression going on in the back of my neck. It can offer me quite alleviating for some people with neck pain. So give that a try. Hold it each for about five seconds there and see if that helps your neck pain. If not, you’re always welcome to come in here for an appointment. Thanks everyone, have a good day.

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Single Leg Balance

Body Works Sports Physiotherapy

604-983-6616

233 West 1st St #420

North Vancouver, BC V7M 1B3

http://www.body-works.ca

Hi everyone,  this is Steven from Body Works Sports Physio here today to talk to you a little bit about balance, as it is something that can be affected as we get older and puts ourselves at risk of falls. So it’s something we want to make sure that we’re keeping in check and we’re continuing to work on here. So a few exercises. One of which is very simple is just standing and balancing on one leg here and what you want to focus on is keeping the knee in line with your toes, keeping your hips and belt line level, as well as your shoulders, keeping them level as well. It’s not leaning off one way of the other there. So once you can hold that quite easily for about 20-30 seconds, you can start progressing it. Such as closing your eyes. So you can see as soon as I start to close my eyes, a little bit shakier and again something I need to work on there. Another way you can progress this is by varying the surface that you’re standing on. So try standing on a pillow. That makes it a bit more unsteady. So I’ll take my shoe off for this one and again if you don’t have this cushion at home, a sofa cushion works quite well as it’s just dense enough to support your body weight.   Good and again, same principles apply. Belt line level, hips level. Keeping the knee in lie with the toes and again, striving for about 20-30 seconds is your goal, target goal for holding all these positions there. Make sure as well that you’re performing these exercises near a counter or a sturdy chair. Something you can hold on to reach just in case. If you find that you’re having difficulty with your balance, you’re more than welcome to come in and set an appointment and we can continue to work on that. Thanks everyone, have a good day. 

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Do you have eye tension or tiredness?  Could be related to your neck pain, dizziness or headaches

Body Works Sports Physiotherapy

604-983-6616

233 West 1st St #420

North Vancouver, BC V7M 1B3

http://www.body-works.ca

Do you have headaches, neck pain or dizziness? Your eyes could be playing a role. Often felt as eye strain, if our eyes are not working well together with your neck and inner ear it can create problems.

Try our simple visual tracking exercise. If you have any concerns or questions please contact us at www.body-works.ca

Hi this is Dana Ranahan from Body Works Sports Physiotherapy in North Vancouver and today I want to talk a bit about vision and how it plays a role in some of the symptoms that we see in the clinic here. So often people have had car accidents or concussions and have issues like dizziness or neck pain or headaches, there can be a component from the eyes as well. So usually the upper neck, the inner ear and the eyes all play a role together. So one of the things that we look at in the clinic and it’s a simple thing you can try at home is look at your ability to smoothly track something. So there are different components to vision that we look at and a simple thing to look at is called smooth tracking. So you would grab a pencil or a pen, in this case I can focus on the tip of the pen and hold it out about arms length away from you which ends up being about 2 or 3 feet. In this case, now I want to try and be able to hold my head steady and see if I can follow that with both of my eyes. Now the question is, can I focus well on that pen tip with both eyes or is it quite challenging. Because usually we start this exercise with both eyes working on side to side tracking, as well as up and down tracking, trying to keep the head steady. Sometimes then we add in diagonal movements as well, or you can do circular movements trying to keep your head steady. Now what the tendency will be, is that your head will want to move with you a bit but we really want to keep the head steady and work to control the eyes following the pen but able to maintain your head in a neutral position and ultimately working with good neck posture as well. Not allowing yourself to slouch forward. If it’s difficult for you to focus on the pen, I would suggest then that you try working at one eye at a time, same kind of idea, switching sides and then after you’ve done each eye for about maybe 30 seconds to a minute, then try to do both eyes together. So you can work them separately and then work them together. So a simple tip for you to try if you have headaches, dizziness or neck pain is to check your visual tracking and how easy that is for you. If you have an other questions or need more specific directions about how this can help you, check out our website at www.body-works.ca

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Posture And Neck Pain - Try The Posture Medic Brace To Help

Body Works Sports Physiotherapy

604-983-6616

233 West 1st St #420

North Vancouver, BC V7M 1B3

http://www.body-works.ca

Do you struggle to keep good posture throughout the work day, while using your phone or devices, or while driving for prolonged periods? Listen to our video and try the posture medic brace to see if it can help you achieve your goals and retrain your muscles to hole better posture and alleviate pain.

Hi this is Dana Ranahan from Body Works Sports Physiotherapy in North Vancouver and today I want to talk about a tool that you can use to help with posture. So the question to you is, do you have trouble with posture and neck pain, upper back pain, trouble staying at your computer all day or driving for long distances without getting into trouble because often we get rounded, if we’re at the computer we tend to have our chin poked forward and our shoulders round. So we get people working on exercises to try to help maintain that, but often this is quite difficult and the tool that we use in the clinic is called a Posture Medic Brace. So this is something we recommend people use at home and effectively you put it on your upper back and around your shoulders and it can help to improve your alignment. So that instead of being so forward with our head and rounded, we can be straighter. So effectively when we use this brace, what I like about it is that it’s so easy to put on, is that you can take this brace and put it around one shoulder, wrap it around from behind and usually we put these little black things in the armpit to sort of make your shoulders more comfortable and keep the mid back, that black piece between your shoulder blades and effectively now I can use this to try to help remind me to stay here. So the brace will help support me there but it’s also training my brain to try to hold my posture neutral. So this isn’t something I’d recommend you wear all day but sometimes I get people to wear for 30 minutes or an hour at work and then take it off for a period of time. So they use it intermittently to help you maintain good posture through the day and retrain your muscles. So if you have any questions or would like more information about how to improve your posture or lessen neck pain, give us a call or check out our website at www.body-works.ca 

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