Does massage help DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness)?
Here at Hawkes Physiotherapy, we offer massage treatments as part of our Physio and Sports massage services and one of the things that we see people for is for muscle soreness after strenuous activity, which is commonly called DOMS or Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. Now we know that from our experience that in our Stoke-on-Trent […]
What is the difference between a Chiropractor and a Physiotherapist?
A question that I regularly get asked is, “What is the difference between a Chiropractor and a Physiotherapist?” So I thought that it would be a good idea to write a blog on this to hopefully clear this up. The first thing is that some people believe that Physio’s don’t treat spinal problems, which is […]
What is the difference between injury rehab and normal training?
Does this sound familiar? 3 sets of 10, twice per day! Unfortunately, it is all too common to hear this out of a physiotherapist’s mouth, but why? You will never hear a personal trainer or a coach come out with these numbers. So what is the difference between injury rehab and normal training? To explain […]
Neck pain: Whiplash
There are many causes of neck pain but in today’s article, we are going to go through what some people call whiplash. What is whiplash, is it just neck pain? The first thing to know is that you cannot have whiplash. Wait, what did you say? Yes, you can’t, but you can have a whiplash […]
Covid 19 Coronavirus Rehabilitation
The government, the media and the general public are obviously very focused on Coronavirus (Covid 19) but the attention is all on how to manage the acute stages of the disease but what about afterwards, the rehabilitation phase? As a Physiotherapist, I often work with patients who are de-conditioned and struggling with their mobility due […]
Why should runners do strength training?
Runners like to run but usually hate strength training but how important is it? Now we all know that running or jogging is primarily an endurance activity unless you do athletics and are a sprinter of course. Now, we all know that training for a given sport needs to be specific, which means it targets […]
Does massage hurt?
When you have a massage, even a sports massage should it be painful and actually hurt or not? At Hawkes Physiotherapy we pride ourselves on being bang up to date with the latest research on everything that we do, including massage. Often many massage therapists are behind the times on this and are doing things […]
Referred pain
How can it hurt here, yet be coming from somewhere else? The mystery of referred pain! This is a very common question that I get asked all the time. It is very easy to assume that if you have pain in your foot then you have a problem with your foot but actually you could […]
20 Home workout ideas
So, we are all currently stuck at home worldwide and the gyms are closed, so how do we get a good workout at home with minimal to no equipment? That’s what this video can help with. Now it is worth saying that everyone’s abilities and goals and time will vary so this is not an […]
Can you push a slipped disc back into place?
Someone felt the slipped disc in my back and pushed it back in! …..REALLY?! What does the science say? Unfortunately, this is something that I hear from patients all the time at Hawkes Physiotherapy, but it is just so wrong. In fact, there has even been research done by Demoulin et al (2018), where they […]
Should you ice your injury?
Have you just sprained your ankle or pulled a muscle? If so, what would you do first? Ice it? Rest it? What if I was to tell you that this may not be the correct approach to the injury! When I was at University, we were taught that in the first 72 hours after an […]
What are Muscle knots?
Have you got a hard, tender lump in your shoulder? That’s a muscle knot, right? You may be surprised by the answer and you may not even believe me! Muscle knots, also known as myofascial trigger points are described as hard, distinct, palpable nodules that are found in taut bands of skeletal muscle. These myofascial […]
What is Sciatica really?
I’m sure that you must have heard of sciatica but do you really know what it is or much about it? That is exactly what we are going to discuss in this article. What is Sciatica? Sciatica is nerve pain that travels symptomatically down the back of your leg via the sciatic nerve. It […]
What is shoulder impingement and does it really exist?
What is shoulder impingement syndrome? Shoulder impingement syndrome is when there is reduced clearance between the humeral tuberosities and the coracoacromial arch during elevation, which pinches the intervening soft tissues. The vulnerable soft tissues are the subacromial or subdeltoid bursa, the rotator cuff tendons and the long head of biceps. (CSP guidelines) Classification: Primary Secondary […]
Acupuncture for chronic patellar tendinopathy: Journal article review
In today’s article we will critically review the following research paper: Acupuncture for chronic patellar tendinopathy P. Jeffs Journal of the Acupuncture Association of Chartered Physiotherapists, Autumn 2013, 79–86. https://www.aacp.org.uk/journal/stream-file/12#page=79 So what type of evidence is this article? The below image shows where this article ranks in the hierarchy of evidence: So this article comes […]
Plantar Fasciitis or Chronic Plantar Heel Pain (CPHP)
What is the pain in my heel? Have you heard of the condition Plantar Fasciitis? What is the Plantar Fascia? The Plantar fascia is a dense connective tissue, it isn’t a tendon or a ligament but it is similar to both (Boabighi et al 1993). It runs along the sole of the foot and forms […]
Proprioception
What is proprioception? It is the body’s ability to sense movement in and around our joints. Receptors within various structures basically detect things such as of stretch, compression, tension etc. Interesting proprioceptive fact: There are more mechanoreceptors in the cervical spine (neck) than in the lumbar spine (low back) What is the basic reason for […]
Tennis Elbow
What is Tennis elbow? “Pain over the outer (lateral) aspect of the elbow that is aggravated by movements of the wrist, painful with direct pressure over the lateral epicondyle (outer side of the elbow) and pain during contraction of the extensor muscles of the wrist” (Struijs et al, 2003). “Pain to direct pressure over the […]
Online Physiotherapy
What is Online Physio? Online Physiotherapy is known by a few names such as virtual physio or even telephysio. Put simply this is Physio done via video over the internet, skype and facetime are examples of this. Why we offer online physio? At Hawkes Physiotherapy we are always evolving and improving what we do […]
Welcome to the Hawkes Physiotherapy blog
Blogging is nothing new to us here at Hawkes Physiotherapy. We have had a stand alone blog for many years and it has been very successful. Some of our articles have had nearly 15,000 views! So why have we switched our blog to here? We wanted everything in one place, a one stop shop, so […]
Acupuncture for lower back pain
Can Acupuncture help Lower back pain? Back pain is a major problem in today’s modern society. For example it is considered that up to 80% of the population will experience a back problem during their working lives and even more challenging, in 80% of back pain it is not possible to identify the exact structure […]
The myths of Physiotherapy: “I’m out of alignment, can you crack me back into place?”
Do physiotherapists crack backs? Many people ask this when they say “I’ve put my back out” or “I’m out of place or alignment” and then ask to be put “back in place”. Your belief in this happening depends on your previous experience of Physiotherapy, Osteopathy, Chiropractic. When I proceed to tell patients that these things […]
The case of the clicky hip (Snapping hip syndrome)
Ever asked yourself the question, “What’s the click in my hip?” Firstly you need to know a little about the anatomy of the area and this is extensive! Bones – Ilium, Ischium, Pubis, Femur Ilium: Acetabulum (lunate surface, margin of acetabulum) Anterior inferior iliac spine Anterior superior iliac spine Ala (wing of ilium) (gluteal surface […]
Iliopsoas Syndrome (Hip flexor pain)
Iliopsoas syndrome is a collection of conditions relating to the area at the front of your hip. The reason that we call it this is because of the anatomy of the area. We previously wrote an article on this, and we at Hawkes Physiotherapy thought that it was about time that we updated it with […]
