CG Sports Therapy

Peripheral examination and assessment means the joints in the limbs. The hip, knee, ankle, shoulder, elbow and wrist. During examination of the spine, it is important to start with subjective questioning. This is arguably the most important part of the examination. Questioning the patient about everything to understand what they have done that has caused the injury. It is essential that referred pain is questioned as that indicates a neural problem. Next comes objective which includes observation, superficial touch and palpation. Observation is used to determine if there is any muscular bulk or spasm involved. Scars, bruising or an abnormal skin texture or colour. Superficial touch is used to decide if there are any inflammatory processes going on. The heat from the skin distinguishes the inflammatory process is occurring. If there is heat, then it indicated an underlying problem. Palpation is used to determine if there is a difference in feel for the therapist on speci...

The spine is a complex part of the body, with the very important role of protection and support. Without the spine, we would literally be a pile of bones. There are 34 vertebrae in the spine, split into 5 sections. 7 cervical vertebrae, 12 thoracic vertebrae, 5 lumbar vertebrae, 5 sacral bones and 5 Coccygeal bones. There are ligaments attaching to the spine. Anterior longitudinal ligament, posterior longitudinal ligament, inter spinous ligaments, inter transverse ligaments, ligamentum flavum, and ligamentum nuchae. Several muscles attach directly to the spine, including, rhomboid major and minor, splenius capitus and cervices and trapezius. During examination of the spine, it is important to start with subjective questioning. This is arguably the most important part of the examination. Questioning the patient about everything to understand what they have done that has caused the injury. It is essential that referred pain is questioned as that indicates a neural problem. ...

LAST WEEK OF TAUGHT LECTURES!!! I am so ready to have summer off! i literally have done nothing again this week but revise for my 2 exams! on Wednesday it was Varsity! and of course an EDGE HILL WIN! Thursday was did revision ready for our manual therapy exam so it was good to get that last minute help with techniques. On Friday we just had a presentation from third year’s to make them ready for their dissertation poster presentation Pretty solid week, very excited to finish year two off now in just two weeks!

this week has been super fast! i have literally done nothing all week! on Tuesday, we had a lecture on employ-ability for when we graduate. We were advised to go to career fairs and build a network on linked in. On Thursday, we had a mock exam for our practical exam next week. it was actually really good to do as we now know exactly what we need to do for the exam! on Friday, we learnt stats again. it didn't take long for the head to become fried with numbers etc. i got to go back to my flat at 11, which i saw a fire engine, and as dad is a fireman back home, i went off to explore it. Lancashire fire and rescue service were demonstrating hot oil fires and what not to do. I managed to complete my last assignment of the year, which i submitted on Saturday! on Saturday, myself and Chris set off for park run in an attempt to complete a half marathon. We didn't expect 20 degree temperatures, and we definitely didn't take enough water, and didn't think of sun cream...

END OF TERM what a long week, I think its lasted so long because its finally end of term. I literally did nothing until Thursday, where I had manual therapy, where we looked at the scenarios for our exam. In the practical, we went through all the mobilisations from shoulder to ankle. This was pretty good, as i'd forgotten most. On Friday, we looked at ANOVA's which is mind blowing! all I want to do is get home and sleep for the whole of easter break!!

This week seems to have lasted so long! On Thursday, we looked at the pain gate theory and how manual therapy effects that. The pain gate theory is a balance between A Beta fibres and C fibres. A Delta fibres are the fibres which are  fast and reactive (e.g. the reaction when you burn your finger). A Beta fibres are the good pain, you can alert them by touch, (massage) Pressure (trigger points) vibration (manual therapy) and cold (ice). the A Beta fibres inhibit the dispersal of T Cells which closes the pain gate, so you don't experience pain. In the practical, we looked at Hip Mobilisations, which was a mind blown practical! On Friday we looked at more stats tests, this time the one way ANOVA. I have no idea about this so i will have to refer to my bible (the Andy Field stats book). This weekend, i have Shrewsbury 10k race, my first of the summer, which i am looking forward to!

what a week. I started the week with absolutely nothing to do, until Wednesday where i watched the women's basketball team beat Liverpool Uni. On Thursday (7th march), IT SNOWED. Uni got cancelled because of the snow, so i had no lectures Thursday. On Friday, we looked at T-Test stats and my head is blown. I have no idea about it! Cannot wait for Park Run on Saturday!

What s quick week! Lucky really! Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were spent concentrating on my research assignment. I’m really enjoying doing it. On Thursday, we had a mock manual therapy written exam. It was hard!! We then spent the afternoon learning ankle mobilisations. I need some practise of these so get ready close friends and family! It was literally a crash course of them which is a little annoying when it takes me double to time to learn each one. On Friday, we had a lecture on SPSS relationships and correlations etc. I’m enjoying SPSS but it is a massive head frier when you have to learn it all in one lecture. I need more time. Once I get it, I get it, but it takes a little longer! The park run is cancelled because of the weather, but I am actually craving a lie in and relaxed weekend of no work!

This week seems to have flown by, and I’m not complaining! My final session of the third rotation of clinic (so now I get lie ins on Tuesdays!) On Thursday the lecture was all about clinical reasoning, which is something I have on the top of my tongue but struggle to speak out sence.  The practicle was on knee mobilisations which I need some work on. This module is hard! We have a mock next week so I need some work!!! On Friday, we looked at the assumptions of normality for spss. I love doing stats. It’s so fun and challenging. Ended the week with a huge PB on park run, knocking 4 minutes off my time!

Boring week.. AGAIN.. I’ve done absolutely nothing this week and I’m happy! I had clinic on Tuesday which was good, I felt confident and I think I did well. On Thursday, my head was fried. We did arthrokinematics (movement of joints) it literally has friend my head. I was tired and it’s hard. In the practicle, we learnt the accessory movements of the shoulder which is pretty fun! On Friday, it was the introduction to statistics. Another head frier. But I like it!! It’s fun and it’s really cool! I can’t wait to do my dissertation now!

It is starting to irritate me how much free time I have this semester. I am bored and I am tired already. Monday we have a tens exam to ensure we are competent to use a tens machine for treatment. I ran another 10k and smashed my PB by 8.5 minutes Tuesday I did nothing, yet again. Wednesday, THE END OF RED JANUARY! Boy it’s been a long month!! Thursday we were back to lectures with a very hard lecture on the maitland concept for manual therapy. I don’t understand it at all yet, but I’m sure with some revision that will change. In the practicle we started to learn wrist mobilisations. This is super cool how you can treat the wrist in simple movements. If you want to treat pain, you have to use grade 1 and 2, but if you wanted to treat stiffness you use grades 3 and 4. For the wrist you have physiological movements, flexion, extension, radial and ulna deviation which you treat after you have assessed the range of movement and the pain. You also have accessory movements like dist...

This week seems to have lasted forever!! However, it is only a short blog this week! Monday was once again spent watching Netflix, printing out miscellaneous items to file and making infographics for upcoming/ past tests and topics. Tuesday was very boring, again, no lectures so I spent that day in bed on Netflix and doing tasks on my to do list that were not of major importance. Wednesday again was spent doing to do list tasks to get them out the way. I lead such a boring life! It was my first official day in university, we have manual therapy on a Thursday which is a treatment for the joints. It is very hard to understand in my opinion so I will need to do a lot of work on this! We spent the day looking at soft tissue treatments including frictions, trigger points and proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF). It was quite fun, however, after RED January, I have tight muscles particularly hamstrings and trigger points were painful. On Friday, we got to research our...

First week back into semester 2. Exams are over!!! This semester we have Monday’s off! I spend my dad being productive with a run, collection of my bullet journal, and catching up with Netflix! Chilled day! It was brilliant after the stress of exams! Tuesdays lecture was ok, our lecturer talked her way through her own journey of being a sports therapist! It was a good lecture and shows how far we can go! Very inspiring! Wednesdays are for placement and clinic, which I had neither, so again it was a run and Netflix kind of day! Thursday was a shock to the system with a completely new module which was hard. It’s full of new information and it blew my mind. I hadn’t wrote for a month before that and we had an in class test on articulation, joint types, degrees of movement and end feels. It was a kick up the bum to keep up with my anatomy revision. The module is called manual therapy which is treating the pain with movements. It seemed pretty hard when I had to be a model for the exam...

First year was an emotional rollercoaster, however I got through it. For first year, I studied massage, examination and assessment of peripheral joints, anatomy and physiology, kinesiology, critical enquiry, and exercise therapy. As you all know, I hated exercise therapy in second year, and this was the same in first year. The only difference was, we were prescribing exercises for the healthy athlete in first year, progressing to the injured athlete in second year. I don’t know if it was the lecturer, the content or the fact it was first thing on a Monday, where I felt my weakest after coming back up to uni from a weekend at home. During the first year, this module was hell. The lecturer was boring and the content was even worse. For practical’s, we would spend the time doing nothing productive. Exercise therapy was graded with a case study assignment and a practical exam on leading an exercise class. The case study was based on a scenario, for me this was designing an upper limb ...

How I revise for my exams: Since I have discovered I am dyslexic, my revision techniques have changed dramatically. When I was in school revising for GCSE’s and A-Level’s, I created posters and used the pre-lined flash cards that you could buy from stores. Whilst at university, I have made my own flashcards on the computer. I used PowerPoint and split the slide in to 4 even boxes and proceeded with typing everything I need to know for my exams. I have flashcards for every module I have studied so far, including a different set of flashcards for each anatomical region and its assessment techniques. Having something that I enjoy doing, flashcard making, makes revision easier for me. Having to read my notes/ research to make the cards, then typing them in to boxes forces me to process the information twice before I have even started revision. Another thing I have started to do this year is recording my voice reading out the flashcards and listen to it back. I am not s...

I cannot wait to finish semester one!!! There is one week left of this boring module of rehab. On Monday, we had the worst lecture ever. There was no point in it at all. It just went through what our module leader had been through in his life and where he had travelled which was pointless. On Tuesday, we had a lecture on mental health and its relation to athlete’s in professional sport. It opened my eyes into how far mental illness can change people. A very tough lecture for me to sit through but was very eye opening. Wednesday came and brought the last session of my second rotation of clinic. Surprisingly it went very well. I assisted the third-year student with a lumbar spine assessment which I am very pleased about as I can remember a lot for my exam in January. I am very proud of myself. Thursday brought a lecture about growth and maturation. I did not spend any time listening to it. I’ve been producing my flash cards for A+P spine examination protocols and physiology f...

I HAVE 3 WEEKS LEFT OF MY FIRST SEMESTER, I AM TIRED AND I NEED TO REST. Monday started with THE MOST POINTLESS LECTURE EVER on lower limb injuries. Talking about the lecturers travels around the world through physiotherapy. "yeah great lecture pal, thought we were on Sports Therapy course not geography". ABSOLUTELY POINTLESS. I STRUGGLED TO GET OUT OF BED THIS MORNING AND I CAME IN FOR THIS?! It was the same with Tuesday's clinic lecture about reflective writing. Throughout this year, we have to do 8 reflective pieces about every 10 hours of placement. Currently i have done 2 reflective pieces, which i am just waiting for significant learning experiences to occur so i can write more. Wednesday is my second session in clinic during the second rotation. It started ok, with a patient coming in with back pain, we assessed the patient which was a good opportunity to observe a spine examination. I performed the objective measures where I measures the ranges of movement ...

Week 9 It’s been a long week, again. All I should do is mention Monday and you should know by now that I hate them. There is no point at all in the sessions, I hate the lecturer and I just can’t be bothered. Tuesday there was no lecture, so I spent the day at my friends being productive and doing work and knitting. I started my second rotation of clinic on Wednesday, I went through a whole subjective and objective assessment, along with a knee joint assessment without any guidance which I am proud of. Thursday was a long day learning dermatomes and myotomes as well as reflexes. A dermatome is an Altered sensory input of the peripheral nerves. A myotome is an Altered motor impulses of the peripheral nerves. Reflex changes of the deep tendon reflexes Myotomes are tested with resisted movements. You can test C1 by doing cervical flexion, C2 by cervical extension, C3 by Cervical side flexion, C4 shoulder elevation, C5 shoulder abduction/ lateral rotation, C6 el...

Week 8 at university Monday’s lecture o ACL injuries was of no interest to me at all. We touched on the screw home mechanism which is during knee flexion where the tibia rotates 10 degrees. The anterior cruciate ligament, the ligament Junior Brown’s recent injury teared, consists of an anteromedial and posterolateral band which gets taught during knee flexion and extension. Hence why most ACL injuries happen during a non-contact knee extension or flexion, as seen in the Michael Owen ACL tear in 2006. The ACL provides stability and proprioceptive feedback to the knee, restraining tibial translation, hyperextension and rotation of the tibia. Surgery is a common method of restoration by taking tissue from the other limb to construct a new ligament. Attached is a rehab programme from Brukner and Khan’s clinical sports medicine. On Tuesday, we looked at TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation), I spent the lecture on amazon fining a cheap machine to give it a...

This week has gone so slow As usual, a 9am lecture that was so boring and We has to plan a 30 minute hydrotherapy session for next week’s class.  Tuesday was pointless. A lecture on sports science. No. Point.  Wednesday was a day off. Spent the day in bed. No work done and had 5 hours with a friend eating pizza and just chatting.  Thursday was a full day of lumbar and sacroiliac joint spine examination and assessment. We started with revision of cervical and thoracic E+A and progressed to movements of the lumbar spine how to measure them and over pressure.  Practise makes perfect so watch out family and friends! Friday was actually the first time I didn’t enjoy kinesiology. My head wasn’t with it and I just wanted to get home. Learning about a paper my lecturer co-wrote about the isokinetic dynamometer and how to work it etc. The practicle led on from this and we set up the IKD and analysed some data on the hamstring to quad ratio.  ...