Massage therapy and non-specific low back pain

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Massage therapy and non-specific low back pain

Non-specific low back pain is a difficult to treat global health burden, one of the reasons for this is that like the name suggests, there is often no clear identifiable cause. A multimodal therapeutic approach was found by the Cochrane Group to be one of the best approaches to managing low back pain. This involves a number of management strategies that include but are not limited to education, reassurance, analgesic medicines and a number of non pharmacological therapies

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What’s happening when our joints crack and is it bad?

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What’s happening when our joints crack and is it bad?

We’ve all had the experience of standing up and hearing a loud pop in our back or hip, or trying to tiptoe through the house only to have our foot make a cracking sound each time we take a step. So what’s happening in our joints when this happens, and is it a bad sign?

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The value of evidence based practice

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The value of evidence based practice

In any field it is common that one approach gets turned into gospel, the world of massage therapy is no exception. We have strong advocates of triggerpoint therapy, myofascial release and more recently pain science, that argue tooth and nail that their approach is far superior.

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Effects of two stretching methods on shoulder range of motion

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Effects of two stretching methods on shoulder range of motion

Here is an article that may be of interest for anyone who works with athletes.

This study found 4 weeks of soft tissue mobilization techniques to be effective for improving shoulder internal rotation and horizontal adduction and decreasing muscle stiffness of the infraspinatus and teres minor in baseball players with posterior shoulder tightness.

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Can a human ever run 100m under nine seconds?

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Can a human ever run 100m under nine seconds?

"Our thoughts, based on 20 years of investigating the biomechanics of sprinting, are “of course they can”. There is no limit to human sprinting in sight yet. Humans have run competitively (with time records available) for only about 100 years. In the context of human evolution, this is far too short a period to analyse with a view of making long-term predictions for the future. Records are still being broken, and training and technology (for example, track surfaces and running spikes) are continuously developed further."

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