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Absolutely! Movement is a fundamental aspect of human health and survival. Throughout history, our bodies evolved to be active, relying on movement for essential functions like hunting, gathering, and escaping threats. In today's world, while our survival no longer depends on these activities, movement remains crucial for maintaining overall health and well-being. Here's why: 1. Physical Health Strengthens the heart: Regular movement and exercise improve cardiovascular health, reducing the risk of heart disease. Bone and muscle health: Weight-bearing activities help maintain bone density, while strength training keeps muscles strong, reducing the risk of osteoporosis and muscle degeneration. Boosts metabolism: Activity helps regulate blood sugar and hormone levels, preventing metabolic diseases like diabetes. 2. Mental Health Reduces stress: Physical activity releases endorphins, the body’s natural mood elevators, which can help manage stress and anxiety. Improves cognitive function: Regular exercise increases blood flow to the brain, which enhances memory, focus, and learning. Alleviates depression: Movement can be as effective mild to moderate depression, offering a natural boost to mental well-being. 3. Survival Adaptability: Our bodies are designed to adapt to physical challenges. Movement ensures that we stay agile, flexible, and capable of responding to changes in our environment. Such as, regain your balance when the luas brakes unexpectedly. Improves immune function: Regular movement strengthens the immune system, making it more effective at fighting off infections and diseases. 4. Social Interaction Connection through movement: Activities like sports, dancing, and group workouts not only keep the body fit but also foster social bonds, which have been key for human health and wellbeing. So, movement isn't just a way to stay fit—it's vital for our physical, mental, and social well-being, and helps us thrive in both the short and long term. All movement is good, what’s your choice?

What can you do to improve your performance? Eat a varied balanced diet that meets your growth and energy needs Drink enough fluids to stay hydrated and replace any lost fluids Plan your training and recovery properly Improve your technique and skills through training As a teenage athlete, your body has particular nutritional needs. Where to start? Start by making a few simple changes, that you find easy to do. Ideally choose something simple that will give you a big win. Maybe its: Improving your breakfast, big win if you have been skipping it Improve your snacks before a match or training eg. bagel with peanut butter and banana Plan what you will eat immediately after a session. This will speed up your recovery, which is really important if you play a number of sports e.g. bag of almond nuts Once you’ve got this right, move onto something else and before you know it you will have a healthy and varied diet. The Fuel Your Body leaflet is packed with information about what to eat and drink to perform best in your sport, stay healthy and feel great. Carbohydrates The main role of carbohydrates is to provide energy for your brain and muscles during exercise. If your diet does not contain enough carbohydrate, it is likely that your performance and recovery will be impaired. The body stores carbohydrates in muscles and liver as glycogen. Glycogen is the main source of energy for the body during exexercise. These Glycogen stores are limited. To improve performance, make sure to start out with a full glycogen tank and top it up throughout the session. If you run out of glycogen, you may feel tired, lack energy, poor decision making, loss of focus and not be able to perform at your best. So, regular intake of carbohydrate-rich foods can be important in this case to keep stores topped up. Starchy foods are an important source of carbohydrates in our diet. Wholegrain varieties also provide fibre, and a range of vitamins and minerals including B vitamins, iron, calcium and folate. Sugars are also carbohydrates and the amount of ‘free sugars’ (those added to foods and drinks or in fruit juices, honeys and syrups) should be limited. What snacks should I eat before and after exercise? Before exercise: To ensure your energy levels are at their best when you exercise, eat a meal or snack that is high in carbohydrates two to three hours before you exercise. Some ideas for pre-exercise snacks include the following Toast (add banana, nut butter, beans) Chicken with rice and salad Baked potato with beans, tuna or chicken and salsa Yoghurt drink with a scone Creamed rice with dried fruit Yoghurt and fruit Bagel with cream cheese or peanut butter Only you, the athlete will know how soon you can eat before exercise! After exercise (Ideally within 30 - 60 mins of exercise): To restore your energy levels (glycogen stores) after exercise and and to maintain muscle mass, eat a snack that is high in carbohydrates and protein. Here are some examples: Ham, tuna or turkey sandwich with a drink or water Milk with a banana Yoghurt drink Bagel and cream cheese, pancake with jam Yoghurt and a banana Fruit and Milk Hummus & Carrot sticks Hydration If you are not sure if you are drinking enough fluids, check out the colour of your urine. It should be a pale-yellow colour. If it is darker than this, you need to drink more. Dehyration will quickly effect performance, reaction times, recovery and injury risk. What does inadequate Nutrition look like? When you do not fuel your body correctly, a variety of things can occur. Low Mood Difficult with motivation for training Hungry Loss of Appetite New or ongoing gut upset Persistent fatigue Unintentional weight loss Altered menstrual cycle More frequent injuries Delayed injury recovery Poor performance What can you eat to build muscle? Protein Protein is important in sports performance as it can boost glycogen storage, reduce muscle soreness and promote muscle growth, building and repair. Foods include red meat, soya and tofu, chicken, turkey, nuts, fish, pulses, eggs, yoghurt, milk and cheese. Carbohydrates also play an important part in gaining muscle. If you are not eating enough to meet your energy (calorie) needs, then you will struggle to build muscle bulk. Excessive Protein intakes above your needs will not result in further muscle growth and can cause long-term health problems. Sports Supplements Unfortunately, there are no quick fixes - supplements are not recommended for teenagers. Sports supplements have not been tested on teenagers or children, so there is zero evidence to show they are safe for your growing body and are not recommended for anyone under 18 years of age.

What Is Arthritis? Arthritis is defined as an acute or chronic joint inflammation. Symptoms can include pain, swelling, stiffness, and redness which may contribute to reduced function and dexterity. There are many different types of Arthritis. Who is affected? It can affect people of all ages and physical fitness - including children, teenagers and athletes. Some forms of arthritis are more common in older people. Should I rest or exercise with Arthritis? Regardless of which type of arthritis you have, remaining physically active and choosing healthy lifestyle behaviours will help you stay mobile and able to participate in activities that are meaningful to you. Living with Arthritis Arthritis can make life difficult by reducing mobility and making everyday activities harder to do. It can affect peoples ability to work and aprticipate in social and leisure activities. Arthritis is commonly associated with depression or anxiety. The symptoms of arthritis can vary from week to week and even from day to day. However, with the right treatment and approach you can manage your symptoms and live well. Types of Arthritis There are many different types of arthritis. Some of the most common include: Osteoarthritis Gout Rheumatoid Arthritis Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis Spondyloarthritis Symptoms of Arthritis Athritis affects people in different ways and each condition will have specific symptoms. However, some common joint symptoms are joint pain stiffness, especially early in the morning inflammation (swelling) warm or red skin over the affected joint weakness ad loss of muscle mass Certain types of arthriris can have symptoms not directly related to your joints: widespread pain extreme fatigue scaly, itchy skin (psoriasis) changes to finger or toe nails rashes fever weight loss symptoms that affect other body systems, including eyes, heart, lungs and nerves How physiotherpay can help It is important to stay active and keep moving when you have arthritis. Physiotherapists, along side other health professionals, can help you manage your arthritis. Your physiotherapist will assess your condition and abilities and guide you on how to keep active and help manage your symptoms. Strategies might include: devising an exercise programme tailored to your needs building your strength, stamina, mobility and activity levels helping you find the balance between rest and activity helping you identify helpful lifestyle choices supporting you to develop skills to manage pain, swelling, and stiffness helping you modify activities at work and home assess you holistically and refer you to other medical professionals as appropriate, such as occupational therapist, psychologist, etc

Video Transcript: Is it suitable to treat your pain - have listen or read this article from Chartered Physiotherapist Sean Clarke. Welcome, this is a video to to let you know that Physio Extra have a new treatment called Shockwave. it is essentially is a machine that produces shockwaves, which is, essentially a pressure wave. It helps to promote tissue healing, helps to reduce inflammation of the tissue. It's really beneficial for those of us that have an injury that's going on longer than 7 or 8 weeks. Usually that injury will get better after 8 weeks and inflammation will go away. But for certain issues, and particularly arthritis and tendon problems, the inflammation can persist and doesn't really improve. That's where the shockwave comes in. It's very effective to reduce inflammation. And if we can reduce the inflammation, we'll be able to reduce pain there. More healing. Usually with Shockwave we start off with maybe three or four sessions of the shockwave one to two weeks apart, and then we prescribe a rehab programme to coincide with shockwave treatment. There's been a lot of research over the last 8 to 10 years demonstrating its effectiveness. It is very effective for particular tendon issues, like your Achilles (which is the back of your heel), plantar fasciitis (which is under your heel) and patellar tendon (which is the front of your knee) and tennis elbow, which is just at the side of the elbow. And then in terms of joint issues, the knee and the shoulder shown to be very effective. So for things like frozen shoulder or knee osteoarthritis, it's very effective. I will make a second video just just to show you what it looks like and what it sounds like what? We're all very excited, I'm very excited about it and so I hope that's going to help many people who are stuck in this inflammatory process where it's been 8 weeks and still at the same level of inflammation. And that's where the machine comes in. And it's been really, really effective for that.

Imagine how you would feel if you occupied your own body, if your mind and your body turned up together! What would your breath be like? Would it change the muscle tension in your shoulders or back? A Walk in nature ... how does that influence how your body feels? Does it change your mood, your muscle tension or your breath? A patient today presented with a 2 year history of right sided Plantar fasciitis. We treated the local issue, the foot pain and had a chat about how he may have been using his body, which resulted in this tissue being overloaded in the first place. He discovered very quickly that he was gripping the floor with his toes for simple tasks like standing and while sitting down or standing up. This resulted in him feeling an increase in tension in his right calf muscle and a shift of the body weight towards the back of his heel. We discussed the implication of toes gripping, tension in the calf and the body weight moving back on the heel on walking forward. Certainly not helpful. With this new awareness, he was able to work out how to allow the foot to relax and explore other options for movement. He smiled and quoted ... ''he lived at a little distance from his body'' I look forward to hear what he discovers for himself, what solutions he discovers.