Kinetic Sports Physio Blog

KInetic Sports Physiotherapy welcome Cate Thomas to the team.

Cate holds a Masters of Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy and has recently enrolled in Diploma of Sports Medicine at the University of Melbourne. Cate is an experienced Clinical Pilates instructor. She has over 12 years experience, with extensive expertise in Musculoskeletal, Orthopaedic and Sports injury management.

In addition to her clinical roles, Cate has been involved in clinical research, contributing to the LEAP Study into lateral hip pain through The University of Melbourne.  She has lectured to both undergraduate and postgraduate Physiotherapy students.

She is passionate about injury prevention in children and adolescents, and has an overall interest in the role movement patterns have in injury and pain particularly in the sport.  

Cate has had the opportunity to work not only within Australia, but New Zealand and the UK, where she has furthered her skills and knowledge in both the musculoskeletal and sporting fields. 

Whether you run regularly for fun, fitness, or serious competition, chances are at some stage you will have faced an injury setback. This can be a very frustrating time and it is often tempting to ‘push through the pain’ and continue running in hope that an injury will ‘just go away’. In some instances, you might get lucky but often running through pain of an unknown cause without appropriate assessment can lead to a long term injury and interrupted running. 

Getting your injury assessed by an experienced professional before it becomes a persistent problem will often result in a shorter recovery time and see you back running at your full potential sooner. Successfully managing running related injuries requires specialised knowledge, experience and a unique set of skills. Physiotherapists acquire such skills through further training, study and by working closely with runners on a regular basis. 

A thorough initial assessment is the critical first step in overcoming your running related injury. If you are seeing a Physiotherapist for the first time you should expect to discuss in detail the following points: 

•      Current and past injury history.

•      Pain behaviour (i.e. how your pain responds during and after running).

•      How far can you run without pain (i.e. your run tolerance)?

•      Other factors that may aggravate your injury.

•      What makes your injury feel better? 

•      Detailed account of current training structure including any recent changes to training routine, footwear, surfaces etc.  

•      Your running goals and your motivation for running.

These questions will allow the Physiotherapist to streamline the physical examination. The goal of the physical examination is to confirm the suspected injury diagnosis and identify contributing factors to injury that need to be addressed. This is done by assessing your muscle strength and flexibility; joint range of movement; and movement control with tasks such as a single leg squat or hop. In cases of longer term injuries, it is important that a thorough video analysis of your running technique is also undertaken to screen for biomechanical contributing factors.

From here your Physiotherapist will explain your diagnosis, why it has occurred, how long it will take to overcome, and work closely with you to set goals and develop an individualised management plan including how your current training routine needs to be modified in the short term to assist your recovery. 

Persistent calf tightness is a common complaint amongst running athletes, including distance runners, triathletes, and footballers. A familiar experience for many is a history of intermittent aching and/or tightness in the calves which increases with running. Symptoms will often settle with rest but there may be a background feeling of muscle tension. Often athletes put up with gradually worsening symptoms to the point where their running and sports performance is significantly affected.  

There are several potential causes of calf tightness and a diagnosis should only be made following a thorough assessment by a Sports Physiotherapist. Commonly though symptoms can be related to biomechanical muscle overload. This means that current loading habits (i.e. how hard, long and frequently you run) are exceeding the capacity of the calf muscles to withstand this load. Individual biomechanics (i.e. how you run) and running surface can also exacerbate load. 

Often the onset of calf tightness and pain will have been proceeded by a rapid increase in training volume (training error). Switching to a forefoot strike pattern or changing to ‘minimalist’ footwear can also be a cause of calf muscle overload. A previous history of a calf tear without adequate rehabilitation can also be a factor.        

To over overcome this common complaint the solution is to modify loading habits whilst improving calf muscle load capacity. Complete rest from running is often not required. Identifying your current run tolerance (i.e. how far you can run before symptoms develop) and adjusting your training plan accordingly can be enough to reduce pain in the short term. If required, making changes to your running technique can also assist to reduce muscle load. However this should only be done following a thorough running technique assessment by an experienced physiotherapist or running coach. A progressive calf muscle strengthening program should be completed to improve load capacity. As pain settles and strength improves running volume can gradually be restored.