In cold weather, in order to be fit and safe we need to be careful about certain things while exercising outside. For people like walkers, skaters, runners and snowboarders, giving up on exercise for a while just because of cold weather conditions is simply not acceptable. So there are a number of things suggested that people must consider while exercising in cold weather.
The most important thing before stepping out of your house to exercise is to check the weather forecast. The temperature that is termed alarming is -30°C and this temperature surely does suggest a cutoff for an outdoor exercise. This is because there is a high risk of you catching frostbite and hypothermia.
While exercising, your body needs more energy than usual. Therefore, to keep your body from being exhausted sooner than expected, you need to have a meal an hour or two before your workout. It is the case when you exercise in cold weather, but in colder temperature your muscles need a greater amount of energy than usual as you need more energy to keep your body warm.
You also need a better warm up exercise than usual, as you need to feel equally warm from head to toe. So try doing a couple of exercises before starting your actual outdoors exercise. For example, you may need to warm up with stationary jog exercises, squats, arm swings, etc.
Dressing accordingly is the best strategy. Therefore, do take your dress attire as the significant element of your workout in cold weather. However, dressing up too much is a bad idea, moreover layers of clothes could be removed or added according to your body temperature. You must opt for, gloves and socks to prevent heat loss, a face mask to take in moisten air to the lungs and last but not least, shoes with gripping sole will keep you from falling on the ice.
Even though it’s cold and you don’t feel that thirsty in cold weather, you still need to keep yourself hydrated. You need to be very careful about your water intake because even in cold weather the dehydration resulting from sweating could be a concern. Therefore in such cases a fuel belt that is held close to the body or a thermal water bottle are a good idea to go with, as they keep the liquids from freezing in such low temperature.
At the end you need to be extremely careful and should decrease the intensity of your exercise gradually. It is suggested that you do your cool down steps indoors and you should get out of your wet clothes as soon as possible.
The precautions mentioned above are solely for the individuals who are healthy. However, if you have asthma or any other chronic health problems you should consult your health care professional. Below is a few more tips on what should be done if you decide to exercise in cold weather:
Warm bed, blanket and over sleeping are what we all love. It is so much easier to cuddle deep into the covers when your alarm goes off. Getting out of bed early in the morning is the hardest thing for most people. As the winter arrives, the first thought is, how to get out of bed easier.
We bring you the best tips to get out of bed more easily, even in the winter.
Drink a glass of water
Drink one glass of water as soon as you wake up. Thinking why? A glass of water can help in stimulating the body and it keeps you awake.
Keep the alarm away from your reach
By keeping your alarm across the room, it will help wake you up more easily. You will have to get out of your bed to put off the alarm, the movement creates a burst of energy and you feel active instantly. Once you get up, do not try to go back to bed, if you do, chances are you will fall back to sleep.
Go to the bathroom as soon as you wake up
Yes it’s true! Don’t believe us? Try it for yourself. Go to the bathroom when you get out of your bed. It instantly wakes you up. Make sure you drink lots of water before you sleep, so when you wake up, you will want to go to the bathroom the minute you open your eyes.
Moreover, it’s recommended that you take a shower first thing in the morning as the water and change in temperature gets your blood circulation flowing. Get dressed after taking a shower, you will feel fresh and active.
Plan for the next day
Think about what you have to do when you wake up. It’s hard to relax when you have things on your mind. It helps you wake up in the morning. Not just waking up but it’s good to plan for the next day, so set goals for each day.
Set a timer for lights
Lack of light makes it difficult to rise early in winters. It’s a good idea to set a timer on your bedside lamp. The moment your lamp turns on or gets brighter, you will wake up. But do not turn it off, if you do so you will go back to sleep. Try to sit upright on your bed. It will help you in waking up.
Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.
Don’t forget it and be among the early risers.
High heels make your legs look slender, long and tight. Wearing heels changes the posture as your chest goes forward and the buttocks upwards. All this has an amazing effect on your body but do you know heels can badly affect your health? Research has shown that prolonged wearing of high heels can cause serious problems. More than 80 percent of women find it difficult to resist a beautiful pair of shoes available at a good price even if it is a size smaller or terribly uncomfortable.
Heels kill more than a person can even imagine. Foot problems in women are caused by extended periods of wearing high heels. Continually bending of the toes, due to wearing of high heels for long hours, in a position, which is unnatural, can result in variety of ailments such as damage to leg tendons or ingrown toenails.
A number of problems occurring simultaneously are due to the increased pressure that high heels put on the ball of your feet. The higher the heel is, the greater the damages on your back and knees.
Below is an infographic that explains the downside of wearing high heels:
When wearing high heels the posture of the body changes as you try to push your back in order to stand or walk straight. This increases pressure on the inside of the knee which then causes osteoarthritis. The higher the heel the greater the pressure it puts on your knees. Knee joint pressures tend to increase by up to 26%, and the forefoot pressures increase by up to 76%.
One of the downside of wearing high heels is tightening of tendons. Tendon is a flexible but inelastic cord of strong fibrous collagen tissue attaching a muscle to a bone. The tendon is designed as such to be flexible, to enable the foot to lie flat or point. But women who wear heels very often suffer from shortening of the tendon. Once the heel is pointed upwards in an unnatural position, it tightens up and then stretching it again, can cause pain.
Appearance of bunions on women’s feet is also very common. Bunions appear due to the bad fitting of the shoe. This is a bony swelling at the base joint of the big toe. So the next time when you buy heels, try them on before purchasing them. Surely you would not like your feet to get ugly!
High heels with narrow toes can cause nerve thickening. A lump starts to appear on the underside of the foot. It is usually found in between the third and fourth toe and causes numbness and toe pain. This is better known as Morton’s Neuroma.
Research has shown that many women tend to develop hammertoes due to tight fitting heels. Such heels crumple up the toes, which leads to shortening of muscles inside, leaving them bent permanently.
Women are ready to reach to any extent in their quest to always look beautiful and modern. As a result the murderous high heels end up causing health problems. Staying healthy is more important!
Avoid wearing heels on a daily basis and keep them for special occasions. Always make sure the heels you wear are comfortable.
Your feet are your base of support and if your feet are not happy nothing can help!
In order to understand chronic pain and successfully treating it, we need to see where it originates, why we feel it, and how it differentiates itself from other types of pain. In that regard, there are two major types of pain: acute pain and chronic or persistent pain. Acute pain is usually caused by tissue damage and it lasts from a few hours to a couple of months, depending on whether treatment is being sought out and if the appropriate course of action is taken.
When it comes to chronic pain, things get a little more complicated. Even after all damage has been mended and the according treatment has been deployed, pain can still persist. It becomes chronic or persistent pain after it moves over the 3 month threshold. In order to better understand it, we need to look at where all pain comes from. In this case, a physiotherapist is the best healthcare specialist that would treat chronic pain.
Understanding Pain and Managing It
All pain sensation we experience is actually being ‘delivered’ by the brain. Nerve endings send over signals when, for example, a tissue is damaged. Those signals are sent to the brain, where they effectively become pain. Counterintuitive as it may sound – pain is actually a crucial part of our survival. Without it, we wouldn’t know when something’s wrong and we wouldn’t know when to seek appropriate treatment for whatever ails us.
In the case of acute pain, treatment usually involves pain medication which can dampen the brain’s ability to send out pain signals. Physiotherapy helps in managing the symptoms and the damage done which is a key component in ridding yourselves from the pain completely.
However, in the case of chronic pain, the brain keeps firing off pain signals even though the tissue has been repaired and the symptoms treated. Medication can help, but only as a short-term solution. The active approach – relaxing, going for walks, using your body and turning your brain’s attention to other things is the best thing to do. A physiotherapist would be the most suited to providing you with the right exercises and course of action you should follow.
Pain is by definition, uncomfortable. And prolonged exposure to pain can lead to stress levels rising significantly, along with a decrease in overall well-being. Targeting these states of mind seems to be the best thing we can do, along with maintaining a proper diet and healthy lifestyle. Do this and your nervous system will become less sensitive and the pain will gradually start to fade away.
Many people faced with the choice, often wonder what a healthcare specialist can & can’t do for them. Moreover, they wonder on whether their conditions are best suited for one or the other, wanting to make sure that recovery is swift, painless and time-efficient. Treatments, however, are regularly not that black and white, although when it comes to physiotherapists vs chiropractors, the issue becomes somewhat clearer, as the latter option could be the safest one.
Why is that?
Well, let’s start by making sure that we understand what a chiropractor does. In most cases, they are trained to read X-rays and determine a course of action for treatment. This treatment, this course of action is usually done through a hands-on approach, in the literal sense. Most chiropractors focus purely on joint manipulation with a smaller percentage also using muscle release techniques like Active Release (A.R.T.).
Physiotherapists, on the other hand, employ a wide range of techniques and treatment options, accordingly adjusting them to each patient’s individual needs, condition and availability. A well trained physiotherapist should have the ability to mobilize or manipulate the spine, perform muscle release techniques, use acupuncture, work on your posture, retrain your balance after an injury or build an exercise training program specific for you. While disorders, conditions and diseases might have similar symptoms in all patients, the patient’s reaction and their dealing with the symptoms differ from one individual to the next.
The wide range of practices employed by these specialists can adequately cover any and all needs their patients might have. It is, however, important to note that we’re talking about trained, certified and experienced physiotherapists & chiropractors. An untrained health care provider, in whatever field they may work under, can and usually will do more harm than good.
In the end, it’s your choice, along with the recommendation you get from your healthcare provider to go for one kind of treatment or the other. But, as always, it’s better to make an informed choice before you settle for a physiotherapist or a chiropractor.
Physiotherapy is one of the most effective methods of relieving pain caused by sprains, strains and other injuries. A physiotherapist is a university trained health care professional who knows which treatment techniques are appropriate for which ailment.
Take the advice of an experienced physiotherapist to ensure that you are getting evidence based treatments. There are some general rules that you should keep in mind to get the most out of physiotherapy. Here are 5 tips for getting the most out of physiotherapy:
- Be on time – The physiotherapy treatments takes some time and cannot be conducted hurriedly or in a compressed form, never miss or be late to your appointment.
- Choice of clothes – Tight fitting clothes like jeans, full shirts, skirts, etc are not recommended when you visit the physiotherapist. Light and loose clothing is best for exercises and therapies.
- Talk to your therapist – If you are suffering from specific pain like knee, back, neck pain, shoulder strain, etc you have to understand which mode of treatment will be beneficial for you. You may have to continue the prescribed exercises at home on your own, so learn the methods accurately to ensure faster relief.
- Follow instructions – Since you are the patient and are in pain, remember to follow prescribed exercises. Do not try out your own methods.
- Be sincere – During physiotherapy you have to work hard to regain your lost strength, range of motion, flexibility, etc. In most cases after injuries you feel reluctant and scared to do the exercises rigidly for fear of pain or re-injury. But the fact is that you need to work harder to increase your mobility, be fit and return to your pre-injury level of activities.
To stay healthy and to stay clear from injuries as much as possible you need to lead a controlled life. Living and moving about, without any precautions or thinking that you are strong enough to do anything, is not a good idea. Accidents can happen anytime and might take a serious turn. It is best to visit the physiotherapist and follow his treatment program instructions to get a positive experience out of your physiotherapy.
With the advent of the winter season, most of the physical ailments seem to increase; joint pains, back aches and all musculoskeletal problems seem to creep up on you. Don’t allow the fall season to weigh you down by following these 5 useful tips for a pain-free season. Think about all the activities that will keep you busy and at the same time give you pleasure. An active life helps keep you healthy and disease-free.
- Find various activities that will get you moving and keep you mentally happy and satisfied as well. Even tension and depression can cause physical illness such as headaches and back pain.
- Once you prepare your routine, get going. Never waste time in mere thoughts and plans. For example, if you have planned to go to the gym, get a new bag, pack up your accessories and fix a time to go there and do your workouts. It is very important to strengthen your muscles and be active to stay healthy and fit.
- Motivation is another important aspect to stay pain free especially during the fall and winter seasons. Sometimes you may not feel like going for your morning walks. If you are motivated by someone or have a goal to reach, you will find it easier to get going. Group classes or group workouts often help in such motivation.
- If you are fond of sports, pick up a seasonal sport to stay. Sports are a unique way of staying fit physically and to feel rejuvenated mentally. The winter season is a fantastic time for starting to explore and learn new sports such as ice skating, skiing, snowshoe walking, etc.
- An important point to stay fit and pain-free, besides visiting a physiotherapy clinic to treat your physical ailments, is to have a healthy diet and profuse amount of water. A balanced diet with an adequate amount of essential nutrients is absolutely necessary to fight all sorts of pains. Drinking fluids during the fall and winter seasons is essential as you tend to drink less in winter and so you tend to get dehydrated.
These simple methods will surely help you to stay healthy and pain free this winter season.
There are various reasons for us to visit a physiotherapy clinic. When there is continuous back pain, neck pain, stiff neck or any condition of the muscles and tissues that is causing discomfort or is painful, and we cannot find relief through home remedies, we rush to a clinic. For example, when there are cracks in the bones or broken or dislocated, the first and foremost thing that you should do is rush to your doctor for diagnosis and initial treatments. Then search for a proper physiotherapy clinic to get the therapies done for a complete cure.
When you are searching for a good physiotherapy clinic you need to consider certain points that will make your treatment and experience the best of all. The points to note about a clinic are simple but very important. They are:
- Qualifications of the therapist: Since the problems are not the common strains or pain due to carrying heavy load in one hand that can be dealt with through natural remedies, the physiotherapist must have a thorough knowledge of his subject and therefore needs to be a qualified and registered practitioner who has mastered this science thoroughly.
- It is best if the clinic has physiotherapists who are experienced in the field of treatment which you are seeking, such as sports injuries, stroke rehabilitation, care of the elderly, respiratory problems, head and spine injuries, pregnancy and recovery physiotherapy after surgery. Experienced and knowledgeable physiotherapists can treat the injuries well for faster recovery and relief.
- Methods of treatment: Physiotherapy treatments have improved to a large extent. Different treatment options should be available at a physiotherapy clinic. Apart from the various exercises related to pain, sprains, and strains, there are specialized methods of treatments such as massage, electrotherapy, acupuncture, hydrotherapy and others which aim to treat you in the best possible ways and cure you. A good clinic should have physiotherapists who have learned these various techniques of treatment thereby offering the right services for your ailments.
- Availability of the physiotherapist: A good clinic should have round-the-clock physiotherapists on duty, so that nobody is refused treatment in emergency cases throughout the day.
Follow these simple rules and get well soon.
Backaches and neck pains have become quite common nowadays mainly because of desk work. Bending forward to reach the keyboard or straining the neck to work at a laptop or desktop is the source of all such problems. Although we all learn the right postures of sitting and standing, we hardly remember them when working the entire day. When the pain becomes severe, the immediate remedy is most often physiotherapy. The physiotherapist will use different methods like electrotherapy, traction, mobilization, etc to give you some relief.
A foam roll is an effective therapeutic appliance that takes care of your health. It is constructed in such a way that when you roll on it, the foam roll creates a feeling of deep massage. There are quite a few reasons why you should stretch on a foam roll.
- It allows the anterior chest and neck muscles to stretch gently. The muscles that have become short or stiff, can return to the normal position if you lie on a foam roll for about 5 to 10 minutes after work.
- The middle back and the thoracic spine become relaxed and the muscles function better.
- Blood circulation improves if you stretch on foam roll especially the skin, muscles, fascia, tendons and ligaments that become stiff due to work.
- Improved blood circulation helps in improving the digestive system, excretory system and leads to a better performance of all the internal organs of the body.
- When the muscles or tendons and the ligaments become short due to tension and overwork, the foam roll effectively works on the muscles and ligaments by stretching and creating a therapeutic pressure in place of hand massage and treats the particular points to lengthen the tissues.
- Stretching on foam roll promotes maximum spinal motion. As you slowly roll your spine you will feel the therapeutic pressure created by the foam roll that you can control when you feel that your joints and tissues can stretch no more.
The advantages of stretching on foam roll are endless. Apart from the muscle and nerve stretches that improve total health and functioning of the body, it is a useful tool for performing various exercises especially when there is muscle pain. But a physiotherapist must be consulted before you take any decisions.
Whenever you are injured, you will hear people saying either “put ice” or “use heat compressions.” Hence the use of heat or ice has come down from the ages whenever there is injury involving the joints or muscles. Today also we use these methods to get relief from injury related pain without any prescriptions. But the question remains that which therapy is best suited for which injury and what may be the adverse effects if they are wrongly used.
We are going to discuss about the various uses of heat and ice/cold on different types of injuries and how they work. What actually happens when you are injured? The fibers of the muscles, ligaments, or the tendons are disrupted. Blood supply to the tissues is also broken and the capillaries start leaking. You feel pain, stiffness and tenderness too.
Both ice and heat help to reduce pain, but remember that when there is acute pain or inflamed injury use cold, and for chronic pain or injury that has started a day back, use heat.
When to use heat:
Heat relaxes the muscles and stimulates the flow of blood and soothes the painful muscles. Thermo therapy or heat therapy is used on the following circumstances:
- When the pain caused by an injury is persistent and has been there for sometime, heat is best for treating such chronic pain.
- Heat should be applied before exercising when there is an ongoing injury for after exercise the pain is liable to increase.
- Two types of heat therapies are used namely the local application of heat with hot water bag, heating pad etc on the affected areas and the systematic heat application through hot bath, sauna, hot shower or steam bath.
When to apply ice:
Ice or cold therapy is best for fresh injuries. In most cases, injuries cause inflammation by damaging the tissues and you suffer pain or redness. It instantly works on the tissues and numbs the injury that gives you relief.
- Cold or ice should be applied only locally for acute pain and also injuries caused immediately after exercises.
- Use of ice packs, an ice towel, ice massage, cold gel pack or even a frozen vegetable bag can relieve unbearable pain caused by fresh injury.
However it is important to remember that heat and cold therapies are only instant pain relievers but not remedies for serious injuries. A physiotherapist must be consulted for permanent cure and injury treatment.
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