Health blog
Are Your Feet Causing Your Back Pain?
Are your feet causing your back pain? You know that old song, ‘the knee bone is connected to the hip bone?’ That catchy tune has a lot of truth to it and explains what is called the biomechanical chain. For many people, simply standing or walking for more than 20 minutes means their back starts aching. This can be due to a whole host of factors, but believe it or not, your feet and ankles can be a culprit.
Read full blog5 Simple Ways to Beat Knee Pain While Running
We all know that running is great exercise for our bodies, but often people stop due to knee or lower leg pain. This can happen for a variety of reasons, but usually ones that we are not aware of. More than 50 million Americans deal with some sort of knee trouble so it’s not surprising that the knees are the second most common injured joint, the first being the joints in the spine. At Loudoun Sports Therapy Center, our clinicians can give you the tools and knowledge you need to address that pain and even help prevent knee troubles from starting.
Read full blogHow to Avoid Back Surgery
The number of patients taking the step to receive spinal fusion surgery has increased by a staggering amount over the past few decades. According to the Washington Post, between 1994 and 2011, the number of these surgeries jumped from 56,000 to 465,000 respectively. That is an 8 times increase in the rate of back surgery in 7 years! In Europe and other countries, back surgery rates are more than 4 times lower than those rates in the U.S.
Read full blogThe Powerful Plank – A Full-Body Workout in One Move
By: Kate Zanoni, LPTA
It’s true! You can get a full body workout with one exercise. It may sound like a myth, but there is one legendary strengthening and stabilization move that will simultaneously work your arms, shoulders, chest, upper and lower back, abdominals, gluteals and quadriceps: the plank!
Holding a plank is certainly a physical challenge, but it’s often just as much of a mental workout. It’s easy to psych yourself out and quit when you start feeling “the burn” before you truly reach muscle fatigue.
Read full blogAre You Breathing Correctly? How To Correct Your Posture and Breathe Better
Do you have to deal with aches, pains, feeling stiff, headaches or just plain fatigue? Your breathing patterns may be to blame. Believe it or not, the stresses we feel during throughout the day can cause us to change our breathing patterns subconsciously. The normal responses to stress are a whole host of reactions. These include shallower but rapid breathing and increased blood pressure to name a few. This can lead to actual changes in blood chemistry and gets your body ready for a fight or flight response.
Read full blogThe Sun, Your Skin, and How to Protect Your Largest Organ
By: Sarah Herndon, Patient Representative
The sun and my skin have not always been the best of friends making skin care a priority. I used to call the Sunshine State ‘home’. I lived there for 2 years when I took a TV news reporting job in Southwest Florida. One of the less glamorous parts of reporting that many don’t know about is when you have to ‘door knock’ for a story. You get an address for some stranger, walk up to their front door, knock, and see if they want to go on camera to talk about whatever that story may be. Needless to say, unless that door-knock goes something like this, ‘Hi, I’m Sarah and I work for the news. Would you like to talk on camera about the 3 adorable puppies you adopted?’ it can be brutal and end with a door slammed in your face. But, it’s part of the job and I will say one particular door-knock is the reason I’ve made some important lifestyle changes and is also the spring board for this blog.
How To Relieve Sciatica in 5 Natural Ways
Have you ever experienced aching pain in the back or buttock area that radiates down your leg? You may have sciatica. This condition affects 1 out of 10 people, typically between the ages of 25-45. The clinicians at Loudoun Sports Therapy Center have helped many patients dealing with sciatica. So what is sciatica and what causes this condition?
Symptoms
Sciatica is typically felt as a dull, aching pain in the lower back and buttock area.
How to Get Rid of Pounding Headaches for Good
You know the feeling of your eyes starting to hurt, forehead starting to pound and even our neck feeling like a big ball of tension? A headache is coming on again and it’s time to reach for the Advil, Tylenol or other type of pain pill to numb it. Why does this keep happening? At Loudoun Sports Therapy Center, we help many patients who deal with these same symptoms. Here are some tips to help you alleviate that pain.
Read full blogHow Do You Know if You Have a Herniated Disc?
How do you know if you have a herniated disc? If you have a sharp pain in a particular part of your arm or leg, a herniated disc could be the cause. Herniated or bulging discs are often blamed for radiating pains, numbness, and tingling in the extremities, but they are not always the culprits.
So what causes a herniated disc? This happens when there is a gradual or traumatic tearing of the rings that make up the discs.
How to Prevent Hyperthermia and Other Heat-related Illnesses
By Sarah Perry, ATC
With recent record-breaking temperatures, we want to make sure you know how to prevent hyperthermia and other heat-related illnesses. Memorial Day weekend is behind us signifying the unofficial start to summer. School is almost done for the year, community pools are open, and many spring sports teams are well underway. As the weather gets warmer and temperatures rise, so does the risk of heat-related illnesses. Our staff at Loudoun Sports Therapy Center wants to make sure our patients are being safe and healthy when they exercise outside or start enjoying other outdoor activities.