What Makes a Great Physio—And What Yoga Teachers Might Learn From It Knowledge, expertise, and experience: the classic trio we tend to look for when we seek out a physiotherapist. But are they enough? Or perhaps more importantly—are they the right things to prioritise? A recent study by Kleiner et al. (2023) explored what people…
What causes pain may not be what maintains it. When someone experiences pain—whether it’s acute, nagging, or persistent—the natural question is, “What’s causing this?” For both patients and clinicians, this often leads to a hunt for a specific tissue or structure to blame. A muscle, a joint, a disc. But pinpointing a source of pain…
The Five Pillars of Health: More Than Pointers of Privilege? When we talk about health, it’s easy to slip into checklist mode—eat well, exercise, sleep eight hours, don’t stress, stay social. These are the “pillars” we’re told to build our lives around, and to be fair, they’re based on solid research. But health isn’t just…
If yoga was dramatically anti ageing, something undeniably measurable and with guaranteed results for all, well, I’d be typing this from my retirement compound full of dogs with an ageing portrait of myself in the attic. However, there IS evidence that yoga in both its physical and philosophical forms does have some pretty positive impact…
Let’s talk about tissue healing, recovery from injury, and what that means to everyone, including movement enthusiasts. Tissue healing simply means the bodies regeneration and repair by replacing destroyed or damaged tissue with new living tissue. So what are these tissues of the body? They include fascia, tendons, muscles, ligaments and bones and we cannot…
A large percentage of my private clients often find me originally with some sort of pain and injury after running the gamut of contradictory advice , money draining services and no change or improvement despite doing everything their physios say. That said, I work collaboratively with some fabulous physios and have even trained a couple…
One of the key things I ask a prospective new private yoga client about is their current activity and as soon as someone says they are a keen gardener it speaks volumes. Digging, lifting, raking, crouching, squatting, reaching overhead, leaning over, gardening has ninja warrior written all over it in my book. In fact an…
When you’re dealing with an injury, it can feel frustrating and slow. However, two key biological principles can shed some light on how your body actually responds and adapts over time: Wolff’s Law (1892) and Davis’ Law (1867) These laws explain how both bones and soft tissues like muscles and tendons change based on the…
Weirdly I have taught and trained yoga to three Nordic walking coaches so far and it really seems to be growing in popularity. One coach I worked with was training in yoga to offer it additionally on her popular Nordic walking holidays and retreats. Like any sport or activity there is some technique to consider…
A study in 2021 found four main psychological factors that increase injury risk in running – and they are quite shockingly absolutely nothing to do with your shoes, gait or terrain or anything you may guess straightaway. The research showed them to be: Identity – meaning identifying as a serious athlete can lead to risk…