Although the clinic maybe closed for face to face appointments we have remained busy helping people with various injuries relating to the new way have life we have been forced to deal with. This ranges from running injuries, gardening injuries and working from home injuries!
These are some of the common injuries we have come across while working during lockdown.
- Exercise induced injuries
- Gardening / DIY injuries
- Working from home
While they may all be different types of injuries, the principle behind why we get injured remains the same, that is often too much too soon, and there is an imbalance between load and the load the the tissue can tolerate, this then can result in pain.
Take running for example, I’ve spoken to some patients recently who have increased their mileage recently so that they can get out and exercise more as a way of coping with lockdown, which has resulted in injury. This increase in volume of running can be too much for the capacity of the tissues to cope with, therefore resulting in injury.
We therefore need to find the right balance between the training load and the tissue load capacity.
With people being at home more there has been an increase in DIY and garden projects, this is another area I’ve seen injuries from increase in load. This could be shoulder and elbow injuries from decorating or lower back pain from lots of garden activities. The principle remains the same that the increase in activity (load) is too much for the capacity of the tissues which can result in injury and pain.
Other factors to consider are work habits, sleep and stress, which can all have an impact on someones injury and their pain levels.
Also from talking to people who are working at home, who are noticing more aches and pains is that there is less general movement within the working. People have said that there are on their computers and sat down much more than if they were at work, they are not moving regularly to speak to colleagues, use printers / office equipment etc. As out bodies are designed to move regularly I often suggest people take regular movement every 30mins if possible, to change position as we aren’t designed to be sat in the same positions for long periods of time.
Through online video consultations we have been able to help those with the above injuries, in addition to seeing people for ACL rehab, ACJ injuries, acute ankle injuries, acute back pain an many more, with some great results and feedback. If you are experiencing any kind of lockdown injury and unsure how we can help, we are now offering a free 10min video chat to see how we might be able to help you, email admin@physioart.co.uk to book or find out more.