Final Day of Sports Massage Course 161211

The participants had their written and practical exam today. They all got their certs. Our Sports Massage course was very well received and received rave reviews from participants from the feedback forms we got them to fill out.

One participant who previously attended another sports massage course said our course's  (practical component)  trumps his previous course hands down while another said our anatomy part was "really detailed, useful and in depth yet easily understood (even better than the strength and conditioning course's anatomy) " that he attended in Melbourne.

Well, you have read and seen the pictures of our Sports Massage course, call us to find out more. Next course is 2,3,9 and 10 March 2013.

To all our participants, chapeau! (or hats off) for a job well done. Read more here.

Day 2: Sports Massage Course

We have a great bunch of participants in our current massage course. Day 2 included a full on anatomy theory session in the morning with Aized and a practical session on the lower half of the body with Marlene.
It's the end of our first weekend. We look forward to meeting the group again next weekend!

We have also planned for the next Sports Solutions Sports Massage Course to be on the first two weekends in March 2013. Please register by emailing admin@sportssolutions.com.sg or call us at 62236078. Please do so early as we would like to keep our class small to ensure you get all the attention you need!

Please also see here.

The 100 Best Running Sneakers Of All Time

Came across this report on www.sneakerreport.com recently in which the article listed their 100 best running sneakers of all time.

This list will definitely stir up some comments, strong feelings and fond memories for others (including myself). I may not agree with all that is on the list, but that's me.

This list got me thinking of my previous own running shoes. Two of shoes I remember fondly were on the list, the Eagle (please see picture below, although mine was red and white) and the Sock Racer, yes both Nike shoes. As a young runner, I did well enough for Nike to give me shoes then (this was when Nike was brought in to Singapore by sole agent Robertson Wilson). Some of you old enough will remember that.

Nike Eagle, no 47 on the list

No 81 on the list Nike Sock Racer

I even found this Nike Sock Trainer and Sock Racer ad

My favourite racing shoe from Nike was missing from the list though, the Nike Duellist PR. I think I still have my pair from 1989, at my parent's place (hopefully my mum hasn't thrown it away).

Duellist (mine was lime green though)

In recent times though, my favourite running shoe was the pair that Adidas made for me when I went to the 2005 SEA games, racing in the triathlon event. Well,  it was custom made for me.

My own custom made shoes which I used at the SEA Games Triathlon event

How about you? You will probably have your own favourite pair(s). Let me know your views.


*Have a look at the article here.

*Pictures from sneakerreport.com, recoveryourstride.blogspot.com, http://only-sneakers.ru/tag/nike-duellist/

Physio And Sports Solutions Dinner

Staff from both Physio and Sports Solutions came together for dinner earlier today at Fika Swedish Cafe and Bistro.

Fika Swedish Cafe and  Bistro

Unfortunately, not all our staff could make it, some are away travelling while others had loved ones feeling a little under the weather. Well, here's what you all missed, please come join us next time.

Mark and Shane

Smile guys

The ladies

Here's a nice cosy part of Fika

Everyone smile please

Kinesio Taping In KL 251112

Day 2 means learning different corrective techniques for Kinesio Taping. Participants get to learn ligament / tendon corrective techniques, spring assist corrective techniques, space correction etc.

One of the current participants mentioned that he attended a Rock tape (which is a copy cat/ imitation tape) course previously and the content was nothing like what he has learnt the past 2 days. Something for you to think about if you are considering participating in a taping course.

I've done courses in different parts of the world and here in Malaysia, the women while practising usually go into a separate room/ area to be respectful of the culture/ norms etc.

Until they realized I needed to be inside to guide them as they were getting some of the techniques wrong which is how I managed to take some pictures (with their permission of course).

As time went on, they were more comfortable practising outside with the other participants.

Now, here's a mighty big Ram's head for fasical correction.

And here's a smiley face in the donut hole correction.

Staff from Medi Lifesports (Malaysian distributor for Kinesio Tapes) and their interpretation of the different Kinesio taping corrective techniques.

Here's a close up

Here's a picture of the class.

Kinesio Taping In KL

Teaching of the Kinesio Taping course in Kuala Lumpur. On Day 1, the participants will be learning all about facilitating and inhibiting different muscles.

Here are some of the participants in action at the Olympic Council of Malaysia.

Stay tuned for more updates tomorrow.

Kinesio Taping Level 1 and 2 on 17-18 Nov 2012

This the final Kinesio Taping KT 1 and 2 course taught by Gino Ng for this year in Singapore, held at Progress Healthcare (Singapore's Kinesio Tape distributor).

Here are some of the pictures from today's KT 2.

Making good use of the corner to practice

Interesting choice selected for the Donut Hole Space Correction

The participants

30-20-10

In case your are wondering, no, this particular blog post is not about what happened on 30th October, 2010. The 30-20-10 refers to a new workout suggested by researchers in a recently published article in the Journal of Applied Physiology.

Experienced runners who follow the workout improved their 5 km timings by 4 % in just 7 weeks while doing the 30-20-10 workout three times a week. Other than improving their performance, their blood pressure & LDL cholesterol also decreased. Their 1500 m times improved by 6%, whilst decreasing weekly mileage by a whopping 54%.

Interested now? Well, here's their workout. After a warm up of about 1.2 km, the runners studied jogged 30 sec, ran their normal training pace 20 sec and sprinted 10 seconds. They repeated this cycle another 4 times, running one continuous five minute repeat. This was followed by a 2 minute jog and then repeating the five minute workout three more times. The runners in the study did no cool down. All in all, they ran about 9 miles a week (or about 14.4 km in a week).

The control group runners continued their normal training and of course showed no improvement after 7 weeks.

What's the main difference between the 2 groups? The control group did not spend any time running close to the maximum heart rate whereas the 30-20-10 group spent about 40 % at or near their maximum heart rate.

The researchers concluded that the intense 10 second speed intervals have a major impact on performance.

No GPS, no heart rate monitor needed, just run by feel. Hope this helps you in your training.


Reference

Gunnarsson TP and  Bangsbo J (2012). The 10-20-30 Training Concept Improves Performance and Health Profile in Moderately Trained Runners. J App Physiol 113(1) : 16-24.

* Picture by RS @ 2012 National Schools B Division 800m girls final

Happy 3rd Anniversary Sports Solutions!

Three years ago today Sports Solutions opened its doors. Thank you Gino for all the hard work you've put into our 2nd clinic. We are grateful to our team, colleagues and patients that have supported us through this journey. We have learned tremendously.

At the heart of it are our patients. All our efforts to update, improve and progress is to help make life better for you.

Aized
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A Podiatrist's View on Overpronation

Podiatrist Ian Griffiths feels the word "overpronation" should be banished. In fact, he feels the term "overpronation" should be erased from current day usage in both the medical and lay communities. Surprised that this is coming from a podiatrist? Please read on.

Overpronation has often been blamed for causing injuries.  In fact, there is little evidence that excessive pronation causes injury for that matter. Griffiths' view (and yours truly as well) is that pronation is only one of many factors to consider when assessing an injured patient.


In truth, pronation is completely normal. Majority of data collected suggests that the average normal foot position is actually mildly to moderately pronated and not "neutral". In fact, some studies even suggest that a pronated foot type can be protective against injury.

This does not mean that you will not suffer from pain or injury associated with your foot movement or pronation patterns. This means that the relationship between pronation and injury is not consistent or predictable and poorly understood at best.


Most of my patients who wear motion control shoes have always been told by their Physiotherapist/ Podiatrist/ Sports Doctor/ running shoe shop assistant that they go to telling them they have flat/ low arches and that they need to control their "overpronation".  Well, now you know that there is actually very poor evidence that these motion control shoes achieve this. Based on what you now know, if the shoe store you go to (or physiotherapist/ podiatrist etc) tell you to choose shoes based solely on how flat your arch looks or how much you pronate then you'd better leave.... pronto.

*Here's the Ian Griffith's article.


Have a look here to read Griffith's view on running shoe selection.

I've also written about running shoes here and here.

Total Solutions Taping Course

Sports Solutions hosted the Total Solutions Taping course yesterday. Not like your typical rigid/ elastic taping courses, the participants were shown instances where rigid/ elastic tape is superior to even Kinesio Tape.

The participants were amazed to learn many techniques that require only a single (yes, you read right) piece of tape. They even learnt how to effectively treat a condition using just underwrap (yes, you read correctly, just underwrap).

Tools of the trade

Better take notes too

Kinesio Taping Awareness Course (With Anatomy)

The participants all ears

Powerpoint slide showing the Hamstrings

Another slide- Trapezius

It was full house for last week's Kinesio Taping class for the Physiotherapy students. However, today's Kinesio Taping awareness course was a slightly more quiet affair. Many signed up, but many did not turn up.

Well, too bad for them and good news for the participants who came as Gino went through some basic anatomy with them using Anatomy charts, models and a Powerpoint presentation of course (picture above).

The participants also had a sneak preview of some KT 2 & even KT 3 material as well.

The next Kinesio Taping awareness course is on the last Saturday of October, which is on 27/10/12 from 2 to 3.30 pm. The course is free for those who sign up, you just need to buy a roll of the original Kinesio Tex tapes from us. Call or email us to sign up.

Those of you who want more Anatomical knowledge can come to our Human Anatomy course.

Kinesio Taping Course For Physiotherapy Students

There was a Kinesio Taping awareness course at Sports Solutions today, specially organized for 2nd & 3rd year Physiotherapy students.

A extra tool in their bag of skills to treat their patients.

Will Increasing Weekly Mileage > 10% Cause Injury

How much further can you increase your mileage before getting injured? Can your weekly increase in mileage be more than 10%? Please read on if you would like to find out.

All runners out there would have heard of the "don't increase your weekly mileage by more than 10%" rule/ guideline to prevent injury. Let's see if there is any evidence behind this "sacred" rule.

In a just published research paper (Nielsen et al, 2012) that I chanced upon, 60 new runners used GPS (or Global Positioning System, something which I never used) to record their running weekly mileage. The new runners who got injured had an average weekly mileage increase of 31% (13 runners were hurt)

The remaining runners who logged an average increase of 22% in their weekly mileage did not get injured. Now, this 22% increase is definitely higher increase than the recommended 10% increase.

Of course weekly mileage alone is not the only reason for causing injury. Overall fatigue levels which takes training volume, intensity, outside life stressors (such as your job, wife, kids etc), plus other factors into account are much better at giving you a better guide as to how much to run, rest etc.

So the evidence shows that motivated runners can increase their weekly mileage by more than 10% if they are careful and listen to their body.

Personally I feel that the 10% increase guideline is good to hold too eager runners in check. We live in an instantaneous society now where you snap your fingers and you want to be a great runner. Many runners expect to just improve their times with short periods of training and doing too much too soon.

With running becoming so popular in Singapore, we've seen many cases of runners in our clinics who have never run in their lives, decide one day they wanna run a marathon, start running regularly only to get injured quickly.

So, you can ramp up your weekly mileage, but be aware (22% increase seems to be safe) and listen to your body.

For those of you who are keen, I have a Self Monitoring Sheet which we gave to athletes back when I used to work at the Singapore Sports Council to monitor their weight, resting heart rate, sleep etc to track their training, outside life stressors etc to monitor overtraining & injury. Email me if you want a copy of it.

Reference

Nielsen RO, Cederholm P et al (2012). Can GPS Be Used To detect Deleterious Progression In Training Volume Among Runners? J Strength & Conditioning Research. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e3182711e3c.

*Picture by richseow from Flickr.com

Sports Solutions Sports Massage Course

Dates: 8,9,15,16 December 2012 (2 weekends)
Times: 9am to 6pm on Saturdays & 10am to 5pm on Sundays
Venue: Sports Solutions, 108 Amoy Street, Singapore 069928
Cost: Early Bird (before 1 Nov 2012): $1200, After 1 Nov: $1500

Lecturers:
Aized Noor (Master Sports & Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy (Australia),
Senior Physiotherapist, Physio Solutions)
             
Marlene Torrent Parker (National Cert. in Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork NCTMB (US),
Massage & Bodywork Therapist)

Please see Aized's and Marlene's professional background details here.

Course Content:
This course aims to teach the basics of anatomy of the human body and practical sports massage techniques.
There will be a theory and practical exam on the last day which you need to pass to receive your certificate.
Morning and afternoon tea breaks provided.

How to register:
Email: admin@sportssolutions.com.sg
Call: 62236078 or 63331211

Best Shoes For Your Kids

My little one running in his Havaianas

I have many patients who are parents and they always ask what shoes should their little ones be wearing. Well, being a parent myself, let me try to provide an evidenced-based view for this.

Prominent gait and running researchers Daniel Liberman & Irene Davis have provided lots of evidence on how we run barefoot, with shoes and how footwear can affect it. Their research is even more relevant for young kids and youths since this is the time when their movement patterns and neuromuscular pathways are being formed.

In a study published way back in 1991, the author concluded that shoe selection for children should be based on the barefoot model as optimum foot development occurs in the barefoot environment. If their shoes are too stiff & compressive, deformity, weakness and loss of mobility could result (Staheli, 1991).

A systematic review published last year concluded that with shoes, children tend to walk faster by taking longer steps increasing tibialis anterior muscle activity resulting in greater knee & ankle motion. Shoes reduce their swing phase leg speed, reduce the child's foot motion and increase the support phase during gait cycle, encouraging a rear-foor strike pattern (Wagener et al, 2011).

For those of you who are trying to run in minimalist shoes/ barefoot running style shoes, this is exactly why you have a hard time switching, your neural pathways have been programmed to run such that you land on your heels. As I have written before, the shoes are not important, your running technique is.

Based on the above mentioned studies, the best shoes for our children are no shoes or those that are closest to no shoes, so they don't change the shape of the foot nor alters how the child's feet works.

So all you parents reading this don't fret if your child runs around sans shoes.

References

Staheli LT (1991). Shoes For Children: A Review. Pediatrics 88:2 371-375.

Wagener C,  Hunt AE et al (2011). Effect Of Children's Shoes on Gait: A Systematic Review & Meta-Analysis. J Foot & Ankle Research 4:3 doi: 10.1186/1757-1146-4-3.

*Picture of my little one running by iPhone 3GS.

Oscar Pistorius Beaten At Paralympics

Pistorius running in his carbon-fibre prosthetic Cheetahs 

What irony, as soon as he was beaten by Brazil's Alan Oliveira in the T44 men's 200m, Oscar Pistorius claimed he was "unfairly" beaten. 

He claims that his rivals are artificially extending the length of their legs. In fact he said this the previous day, before even losing in the final.

Well, there is a lot more to running faster than having long strides. If having long strides was all it takes to run fast, all the tall people will be the fastest men in the world. Not true as you can probably conclude.

Scientist Prof Peter Weyand has previously written that Pistorius has an enormous advantage over able bodied runners as the latter cannot move their limbs at the same rate. Pistorius is capable of achieving leg repositioning times no human ever could. So I guess now Alan Oliveira is also benefitting from it and probably exploiting it btter than Pistorius. 

* Picture from Gallo Images

Kinesio Taping Awareness Course @SS

We held a Kinesio Taping awareness course @Sports Solutions this afternoon. Here are some pictures from the course.

Participants all ears

During the practical

Taping for neck pain 

Next awareness course is the last Saturday on September, on 29/9/12. The course is free, you just need to buy a roll of the original Kinesio Tex tapes from us. Call or email us to register. Limited spaces.

Today's Sunday Times 120812

Sports Solutions is quoted in today's Sunday Times newspapers on page 11 of the main section on using Kinesio Tape.

Sports Solutions is having a Kinesio Taping awareness course on 250812 from 2 to 3.30 pm. Admission is free, you just need to buy a roll of the original Kinesio Tex tape from us. We will have this Awareness course every last Saturday of the month. This course is for you to find out more about Kinesio Taping and whether to attend the Kinesio Level 1,2 & 3 courses. Please call us to sign up. Limited to 20 participants.

Use the original Kinesio Tex tapes, http://www.weloverunning.blogspot.sg/2012/04/more-on-imitation-kinesio-tapes.html
and
http://www.weloverunning.blogspot.sg/2012/06/using-kinesio-tapes-for-just-5-hours.html


* Picture by Getty Images

Less Than Fifteen Centimetres

After racing almost 2 hours (1 hr, 59 mins and 48 secs to be exact), first and second place in the women's triathlon at the Olympics was separated by less than fifteen centimetres.

That's really close

Another look

First ever sprint finish that was so close at the Olympics. Nicola Spirig from Switzerland outsprinted Sweden's Lisa Norden by a whisker. Erin Densham was a further 2 seconds adrift in the second picture.

* Photos by Omega & Reuters.