It’s your nerves! Now, I don’t mean you’re the nervous sort and need to take tranquillizes to get through your day, rather I want to address how your nerves play a part in the muscle, joint or tissue pain you may be experiencing.

There are a few unexpected outcomes of poor posture that can affect your career prospects, stress levels and happiness!

From a nasty case of sea sickness Anthony McEvoy learns a bit more about vertigo and can finally sympathise with the people he treats....

Laura Carroll gives us the low down on managing shoulder pain for swimmers in the lead up to Saturday's big race.

Why do we always forget the paddler when they are arguably the most important cog in the machine....

The likely cause of headache in the neck is damage and inflammation of the joints of the first three vertebrae. We call these levels cervical vertebrae 1, 2 and 3 or C1, C2, C3 for short.

The thinking is that cardio exercise calms down the inflammatory proteins in the nasal passage. This is interesting in that moderate cardio has been known to help with reducing risk and severity of Alzheimer’s, diabetes, stroke and heart attack etc, etc! 

If you’re a walker, walk briskly for 5 minutes to warm up then increase your intensity for 30 seconds to 1 minute, drop back to your normal walk for 2-3 minutes, then step it up again (and if you can co-ordinate it with an increase in the road/foot patch gradient) and continue this routine for the length of your walk.

Back pain is such a common problem, the healthcare industry and therefore the media has been very invested in this problem and as a result there are many ideas, beliefs and attitudes towards back pain. These beliefs have a large impact on peoples disability and recovery. 

As mentioned, this is excluding serious issues, such as ankylosing spondylitis, or spinal stenosis, or disc protrusion with associated radiculopathy, or any other long and scary word combination you may have overheard.

Chronic pain is not just a physical issue; it’s a mental/emotional one as well. So if you struggle with back pain as well as anxiety, depression, foggy thinking or even memory problems, there’s a good chance they could be related.

Creating an environment, which takes the load off your back, reduces muscle spasm and strengthens weak muscles, is definitely more important than any treatment you may attend. Looks like I’m doing myself out of some work here!

If you notice pain running down the back of your lower calf and into your heel after a run or other sporting activity this could be a warning sign for Achilles tendinopathy.

In recent years I have seen a mini explosion of neck and upper back pain that I think can only be linked to our modern technologies of computers, video games etc

Gluteal tendinopathy is characterised by pain to the side and back of the hip and buttock region (Pain in the Bum), and it may radiate down the side of the thigh. It is a problem commonly associated with late-middle aged females, and there may or may not be some associated osteo-arthritis of the hip joint.