Livin' La Vida Lockdown

Another lockdown and hopefully we all have gone into into better equipped so as to let let it take its toll on our physical and mental health.

At SmartMoves, we are an essential service and are still open. We are taking all the necessary precautions and strictly adhering to all guidelines from NSW Health.

Our superstar physios, Matt and Sam have shared some insight into the best ways to manage lockdown, working from home, and staying active when gyms are closed.

Stay safe and stay active!

How to push yourself at home without getting hurt!

Too often during the first lockdown of 2020 we saw patients who injured themselves exercising at home. The reason for this is almost always due to exposing the body to a new movement with excessive volume (reps).

At home you do not have the weights that are available in the gym. So, you wouldn’t be alone in thinking that high volume is the answer – for instance instead of doing 3x10 bench press at 40kg you might do 3x20+ push-ups. Squats, push-ups, or lunges are great exercises for home however they can excessively load your joints when done at high volume – leading to pain and dysfunction.

So, what is the answer? How do we train our muscles enough to ‘do something’ without getting hurt?

The answer is found in one word…

ISOMETRIC

That is to work your muscles in a sustained contraction with your joints in a safe position.

For example:

5x20second squat holds at 90degrees of knee bend

5x10seconds of push up hold with elbows at 30degrees

3x30second lunge hold with your body rotated toward the leg being exercised

Try these and feel the burn! Push yourself safely. Now that’s a SmartMove!

Working from Home injuries

Last year saw a massive influx of patients suffering with upper arm pain. This may have been coming from nerve entrapment, shoulder dysfunction or referred pain from neck issues.

The common theme in this new phenomenon was clear very early.

All these people worked from home.

Once I asked more questions it became obvious that these WFHers had one thing in common.

THEY WERE ALL USING LAPTOPS AT THE DINING ROOM TABLE.

This arrangement may be okay for short stints however your body will soon protest if it is kept up for weeks on end.

This is because it causes a number of postural issues that are laid out in the table below. I have also included possible solutions for each issue.

Complaint Common Reason Solutions

Tight back of neck and headaches Poking chin forward ?glasses

Bigger monitor

Bigger text on screen

Screen to just below eye height

Pain between shoulder blade Reaching too far to use trackpad Bring chair closer (use chairs

with out arm rests)

Use mouse

‘Nervy’ arm pain Drooping/rounded shoulder Chair may be too high

Desk may be too low

Lower back pain – tiredness Sitting too upright Remove lumbar support and relax

Take breaks to bend forwards

Lower back pain – shooting pains Slouched sitting Use lumbar support

Take breaks to extend backwards

Move chair closer to desk

What does insulin resistance actually mean?

Diet, insulin resistance and rehab

We all know the pros and cons of maintaining a good diet, our choice to eat foods with high carb, sugar and fat content delivered straight to our door through uber eats can make us feel heavy, lethargic and a bit gross the next day. But did you know the effect of such a diet can also play a big role in the function of our muscle function, performance and recovery.

We are increasing our understanding of how high fatty and sugary foods that affect our blood sugar levels actually affect metabolic mechanisms of our muscle performance and ultimately result in mechanosensitive changes. Meaning that we actually loose our strength at a cellular level when our diet is crap!

Most of use have heard of the term insulin resistance and most of us have a faint understanding that if we eat sugary junk continuously we will end up with a faulty mechanism to regulate insulin and somehow be at risk for serious health issues such as diabetes. BUT... what does insulin resistance actually mean and how does it affect our muscles? Well, it’s actually your skeletal muscles that are becoming “insulin-resistant”. At a cellular level our muscles get overloaded with glycogen and metabolic wastes.

So our muscles are the victims of this physiological change and as such our muscles fill up with greater glycogen content and as a result secrete more lactate, therefore we get tired quicker and feel depleted a lot sooner when our muscles are in this state.

So if you are training, nursing and injury or on a rehabilitation path... A SOLID DIET, low in fatty and sugary foods IS CRUCIAL to allow muscle healing and recovery. Have you stalled with your rehab journey? See how switching to a low fat, low sugar, high G.I diet may help you to get back on track with your recovery process! Skip the uber eats this weekend and try get the heart rate up with a cardio session before you eat breakfast this morning, ultimately bringing your insulin levels down.

Elastic Resistance and Muscle Strength

You’ve seen us use elastic bands in pretty much every rehabilitation program. Elastic bands have many benefits and are prescribed to almost everyone who leaves our physio clinic with a rehab program. Why? Because they make resistance training super accessible, cost-effective and you can get the equivalent of a 6.5kg weight which can fit in your pocket!

One of the best benefits of using elastic bands when training is something a little bit more complicated and has to do with the unique properties of elastic and our muscle strength curve. It’s this reason why elastic band training can offer a very specialised and helpful rehab tool.

As we flex our muscles and move our limbs through range. I.e. we flex our bicep and our elbow bends, our muscle works through a range. When we initiate the movement our muscles are generally at their longest (or shortest) length and at this length the muscle is at its weakest. As the muscle contracts it moves towards its peak power at about halfway through its range. This sweet spot is where the muscle is at half-length relatively speaking and is at its strongest. Then the muscle continues to shorten and starts to become weaker again as it moves towards its end of range. If we visualise this on a graph we can visualize a muscle strength - bell curve.  

If we now picture this bell curve say during the action of a bicep curl with a free weight, the force of the weight does not change throughout the movement and our muscle will inherently have to work harder to pull the weight up towards its most strongest mid range and then harder again as it goes past the mid point towards its end of range. BUT now imagine this movement with a resistance band.

As we are pulling the band, not only is our muscle working through its length changes, starting weaker, getting stronger and then weaker again but the elastic property of the band means that we need to generate more force to pull the longer it gets.

So we are challenging our muscle twice as hard to pull through to the end of range. The fact that we have to work harder the further we work into our muscular weak zone makes training with elastic bands a great way to bulletproof our muscles at their most vulnerable. Helping to protect against injury and really push the strength gains!