Meet Rebecca, the clubs new Physio

My name is Rebecca and I’m delighted to be working with Leeds based Personal Trainers Elemental Fitness and the Elemental Kickboxing Leeds to offer a 1st class, bespoke physiotherapy service.

I run Twist Physiotherapy which is based at Evolve Medical a CQC registered clinic near Owlcotes, Pudsey. I have worked in the NHS in a wide range of settings and in the private and charity sectors.

I have worked with elite footballs and rugby players post orthopaedic surgery. I have run my own musculoskeletal clinic since 2017. I work with boot camps, gyms, PTs, sports clubs and running clubs to treat sports and non-sports injuries.

Getting my clients back to exercise and meet their own rehabilitation goals is my absolute passion. I treat a wide range of ages, ability and fitness levels, so it’s not all about sports injuries but pathologies such as, long standing back pain or arthritis.

Physiotherapy is aimed at restoring movement and function when injury, illness or disability cause problems, it also helps with injury prevention, reducing the risk of further injury or illness. Physiotherapy takes a whole person approach. This means that you are treated as an individual taking into account your physical, emotional and social situation. In my experience this is the most effective way of using physiotherapy. Physiotherapy is a partnership between you and your therapist and involves enabling you to manage your own condition. Conditions such as back pain, neck pain, shoulder pain, lower limb pain and sporting injuries can be treated. Physiotherapy also encompasses other areas such respiratory, neurological or cardiac conditions.

Physiotherapy is a degree qualified profession governed by the Health and Care Professions Council. The majority of physiotherapists work in the NHS, but there is an increasing number of us working independently to offer private care.

As somebody that trains regularly or somebody that has started out you may notice that you pick up some niggles or injuries along the way. Sometimes these resolve themselves quickly, sometimes they linger for weeks or even months. You may find that the symptoms worsen and you have to adapt your exercise or technique or even stop certain activities. This can be frustrating and make you feel like you are losing motivation to hit your goals.

Injuries can occur as a trauma such as, a hamstring tear during a specific movement such as a fall or they can occur as an overload injury this can be the result of over training such as, going straight for a 10k run when you haven’t run before. Or it can be a repetitive injury from your job, for example if you do a repetitive activity such typing all day. It can also occur as a sporting injury such as constantly overloading with an underlying injury or biomechanical issue.

Let’s take an example, think about your shoulder. There’s lots of things that can wrong here! But let’s think about the rotator cuff muscles, these are the intrinsic muscles i.e. deep not the ones you see on the outside such as the deltoid muscle. The rotator cuff keeps the head of the humerus in the glenoid fossa i.e. the socket. There are 4 in total that give the shoulder stability and certain movements. The shoulder joint is very shallow to allow for the wide range of movement we have. This means there’s lots of structures within the joint ligaments, tendons etc. If for example we have any inflammation this can reduce the joint space and cause ‘impingement’ in turn this causes pain, reduced range of movement and strength.

Initially we’ll start to struggle at the gym lifting weights, bench pressing and sometimes weight bearing i.e. press ups or planks and at home we’ll start to get pain on dressing and reaching into cupboards. It’s super important that shoulders are dealt with quickly as they are in danger of becoming very painful and restricted. The first course of action is physiotherapy, this involves assessing your posture, movement and strength. Posture is super important when exercising and in everyday life so if you slouch forward, you are automatically putting your shoulder at a disadvantage. Your shoulder needs to sit neatly on your rib cage and be able to rotate to enable the shoulder move. Then we have muscle imbalances the rotator cuff, sometimes we’ve over trained the big muscles you can see but neglected the rotator cuff. Pain means we don’t want to move even though it is often the very thing we need to do to recover. This is where physiotherapy comes in, we can help you understand the ways to move, strengthen the weak muscles and mobilise any stiffness and educating you that it’s OK to move! This is done through a combination of bespoke exercise plans, hands on treatments, electrotherapy and other treatment techniques such as taping. All helping you on the road to recovery and back to what you love doing.

Injuries to Professional and Amateur Kickboxing Contestants, A 15 year retrospective study, Reidar P Lystand PhD, Orthopaedic J Sports Med. 2015 Nov;3(11)

Anatomic region and type of injury incurred

- Anatomic Region Type of Injury

- Head Dislocations

- Shoulder Fractures

- Elbow Hematoma

- Forearm Joint sprain

- Wrist and hand Laceration Trunk Nerve injury

- Chest Organ injury

- Abdomen Tendon injury

- Hip and groin

- Thigh

- Knee

- Lower leg

- Ankle

- Foot

Make sure you warm up properly, this means getting your heart pumping as well as stretching out your limbs before training.

Make sure you are training at the correct level.

To reduce the chance of repetitive type injuries, mix your training regime up. A good balance of cardio, strengthening, stability and flexibility training gives you an all-round fitness that helps stave off those niggles.

Keeping a good fitness level in general will help you get more out of your training.

Introduce yourself to any new activity slowly

With a soft tissue injury, you want to be following the RICE protocol. Rest initially but not too long as we need to ‘load’ our tissues to start recovery, this is where physiotherapists come in! We can guide you through from acute injury to end rehab. Ice for the first 48-72 hours to reduce swelling, this will help you move your limb to get the blood flowing. Compression is great for a big swollen ankle, getting the swelling down enables you to get moving. I often advise tubi-grip of similar as long as swelling remains. Elevation, get those feet up to aid with circulation. If you’re worried at all especially if there is any deformity, there is excessive heat or tightness, you are struggling with pain management, you are struggling to weight bear or you are seeing no improvement you will need to seek medical attention.

Sometimes soft tissue injuries will sort themselves out quickly, this depends on the level of damage to the tissues. Sometimes they can take a really long time, some research suggests it can take up to 2 years to completely recover from some injuries. Structures such as the rotator cuff that I spoke about earlier have poor blood flow and therefore, take longer to recover.

If you find your injury is not getting better it is always better to get professional advice and a rehabilitation plan. If an injury is not rehabilitated properly it can lead to reinjury or become chronic in the sense that you lose range of movement and strength and have prolonged pain. A classic example is sprained ankles. Feet and ankles are really complex structures with many small bones, ligaments, tendons and nerves. Given the amount we ask from our ankles it amazing how such small ligaments are involved in keeping them stable. It means we have lot’s of input from the ankle/foot to our brains to make sure we can for example adapt to uneven surfaces or as in kickboxing do activities on a single leg. When we get injured those sensors that tell us where to place our foot get confused and we can struggle with our balance as well as the
joint and/or soft tissue needing to heal. Feet themselves are notoriously weak, maybe because we wear footwear most of our lives, they have become lazy!

I nearly always give foot strengthening exercises for ankle and foot injuries and often lower limb issues in general. Here are some examples of exercises you can do to keep your feet strong and able for kickboxing.

Simply place a towel on the floor and scrunch it up with your toes.. it’s harder than it sounds!

On a similar note try picking up a marble with your foot.. this one is great fun to get competitive with!

Again, harder than it sounds, this is a strange one as we are a bit switched off from doing this movement you want to be placing your foot flat on the floor and start tell the front of your foot to slide back to shorten your foot arch.

Simply spread your toes!

Initially you will receive an assessment, this involves looking at your posture and how you move, range of movement and strength, physiotherapists also use ‘special tests’ to ascertain the source of your issue. As you are assessed I will explain what I am doing and why and will also explain what I think is happening we will then make a plan towards recovery. Treatment courses usually involve 3 to 6 sessions but this can vary. Your plan is bespoke to you this means that you will receive your own exercise plan via Physiotec, where you can see videos and explanations of the exercises that you have been given. You can also track your progress on the Physiotec App. Depending on your needs your treatment sessions may also involve mobilisations, soft tissue release and/or taping techniques. I often incorporate Pilates based exercises in rehabilitation plans as I find this an extremely effective modality to get back to your sport or exercise preference. Either bring or wear shorts and a vest top for ladies. More information is available here.

Book an appointment online and scroll to physiotherapy or contact me directly on the details below

Clinic number 0113 257 6701

Mob. 07725 304709

Email [email protected]

FB and IG @twistphysiotherapy

Twist Physiotherapy at Evolve Medical, Priesthorpe Ave, Pudsey, LS28 7TG

I look forwards to meeting you soon.

Rebecca will be attending the club and running a short series of strength, stability and flexibility sessions to benefit those wanting to develop their skills in kickboxing. Details will be sent out via our app, Facebook and by email once dates have been confirmed.