As a physiotherapist, I am privileged to meet a multitude of individuals who come in the hopes of improving their mobility and maintaining their independence as they get older. Oftentimes these people come in the door after a fall or a sudden deterioration in their mobility which has significantly impacted their quality of life and what they are able to do independently on a day to day basis. These visits often serve as a frequent reminder that we can often take many aspects

This is something that often sits at the back of peoples minds when they ponder on the what if’s and question why they haven’t fulfilled the goals they have set in the past when it comes to their health and fitness. It can be very reasonable to feel like the world is against you in many ways and it can be hard to ask yourself the hard questions! The right time.. This is a big one in my experience, the never ending pursuit of finding the right time to start. While this may see

Getting old is something that awaits the majority of us. While we may feel we understand what usually happens as we age, I feel we don’t truly understand what is happening at a structural level - and how important our daily behaviours can be to shift the scales in your favour! Osteoporosis and Osteoarthritis. These are 2 of the more common conditions that we are likely to encounter at some point as we age. Osteoporosis refers to the reduction in bone density(think brittle bon

As we age, it is common for us to start experiencing the effects of aging and these can differ person to person. What I see a lot in clinic and through observing the general population? I see people become less active as they get older, they are often told or tell themselves that they need to slow down and remember their age. Others believe they are doing more harm than good by increasing their efforts to move more and develop their exercise tolerance. In this article I hope

While I believe this statement objectively to be true - I believe it offers little help to those who are looking to better understand the process of weight loss, improving body composition and overall health and fitness. In my experience I like to break the process into 3 Pillars; Training, Nutrition and Lifestyle. In this article I will briefly cover my approach to improving the variables mentioned above. Getting in shape and improving your health and fitness isn’t necessari

This week while I’ve been away, I thought I’d cover some simple things I try to do each day to stay on top of my health and fitness. This list is not exhaustive or compulsory - it simply provides a rough guideline to what I would consider some helpful habits to incorporate into your day to day while away! Protein and fibre! These are generally quite straight forward and should be relatively simple to incorporate. The habit I have gotten into is making sure I am having at leas

While these concepts are more or less well positioned for improving our health and fitness - upon reflection, I feel these concepts could be communicated a whole lot better to the general population where health and fitness is the goal! 1OK Steps is not the target - increasing your physical activity is! Targets are helpful, but they aren’t the pinnacle when it comes to health. The goal behind a step count is simply to help encourage more physical activity on a daily basis. T

As I have learned and progressed along my fitness journey, my experiences have helped to better shape my perspective on what truly matters when it comes to working on your health and fitness. In many cases this is more straightforward than you would think, I hope to share this in 3 simple principles which I wish I had better understood earlier in my career! Consistency beats perfection! Perfection can seem great, it can even appear to be the bare minimum in terms of expectati

As many reading this are probably aware by now - there is a surplus of information going around the health and fitness space when it comes to what works best and what everybody should be aiming for if their goal is health and fitness. Unfortunately this space has become saturated with a surplus of misinformation and it is getting harder and harder to decipher which advice is helpful or hindering when you aren’t well versed on said topics! In this article I will focus on some

One of the more annoying pains out there is knee pain. While this can be common in active people and athletes - it is often equally as prominent in more sedentary populations. While there are a multitude of reasons why someone might experience knee pain at some point in their life. The principles for best management will often be the same! In this article I hope to offer my thoughts on how to most proactively approach that pain in your knee! Load it. I’ve said it before and I

It’s easy to become overwhelmed when it comes to improving your nutrition whether that be for health, performance or both! I see this commonly with clients trying to turn their normal diets upside down in order to put together what they believe to be the perfect diet for their goals! If this sounds like you and you feel you just can’t find something that works - then this article is for you! Starting off - I like to encourage clients to develop a baseline. What foods do they

Back pain is multifactorial, meaning it’s influenced by more than just physical structures. This is why both its causes - and its management can be often misunderstood in light of current evidence. To better understand your “back pain” - it can sometimes be helpful to first understand “pain”first and foremost. A lot of the time, people associate pain with structural changes, tissue damage, or pathology — and in some cases, this can be relevant. However, a growing body of evid

You’ll have to pardon the pun but this is a topic that I see being frequently misunderstood on a weekly basis. Sometimes a misunderstanding of this diagnosis can be more damaging than the condition itself in my opinion! In this article I hope to shed some light on the topic and offer some reassurance to those who may not know what to make of the diagnosis or maybe know someone else who may find this helpful! The reality is that Osteoarthritis as a condition is way more common

Something I see a lot in clinic and with my online clients. A common misunderstanding when it comes to pain and injury. Once this misconception is clearly understood - I find things start to drastically improve when it comes to variables like strength, function and of course..pain! I firmly believe if more and more people were educated on these mechanisms we would have a lot less people struggling to the same extent with pain and injury. As a physiotherapist, education plays

Often we find ourselves in awe of friends, colleagues and such who manage to stay in shape year round. We might put it down to luck, genetics, circumstances, discipline or a myriad of other reasons that for one reason or another - we feel are out of our control. We might see these goals as unrealistic and feel we are a million miles away from the life we want and need if we really want to start prioritising our health and fitness. The reality - there will always be someone b

As health professionals we are privileged to work with a wide variety of individuals. As a result you come to learn that people often have busy lives where they might initially struggle to fit their health and exercise behaviours in as a result. In many cases this can be time sensitive- there are times during our life where our priorities may shift with other priorities taking centre stage i.e. having children, maybe an ill family member or an exceptionally busy period in wor

In this week's article I hope to provide some basic principles we can follow if we want to prioritise our performance in the gym and try to maximise our return on investment when it comes to the hours spent training! To many, these may seem basic - but ask yourself. Are you truly maximising your efforts in each area? In my experience there is often always something we can improve upon in each of these areas if performance and true potential is your goal! Have a plan. While ge

As a physiotherapist and online coach - I am reminded on a daily basis thatArthritis is something that the majority of people are going to experience at some stage of their life - some people confirming the diagnosis through an x-ray because of ongoing pain - the other individual finding out as a result of imaging for a separate investigation with little to no symptoms of arthritis. As physiotherapists - this is one of the more common things we see people worrying about - in

Sometimes we tell ourselves that health and fitness is out of reach. We look at the top 5% of fitness influencers who are what we define as the pinnacle of health and fitness and we immediately have an overwhelming task looming up in front of us. The good news as this is not how we need to look at things. Improving your health and fitness is a lot closer than you think - and every effort no matter how small is going to help! In this article I will highlight 3 tasks we can do

This week I was kindly asked to come on air to discuss gym etiquette on my local radio station WLR. The topic was centred around issues that are becoming more prominent in gyms as more and more people get into the gym and start to work on their health and fitness. I started working in gyms almost 5 years ago and have been training for over 10 years so I felt qualified to speak on such issues that appear to be more and more common in gyms over the last few years. These issues