Andries Lodder biokineticist in Fourways
Bio4Me biokineticist practice in Fourways
Bio4Me best biokineticist in Fourways

Staying Strong at the Center: The Benefits of Core Strength

Posted on February 28th, 2023 by Andries Lodder

By Gcina Gumede

Core strength is important for overall physical fitness and stability. A strong core can improve posture, balance, and stability, reduce the risk of injury, and enhance performance in physical activities such as sports, activities of daily living and exercise. 

It also supports the proper alignment of the spine and hips, which can alleviate back pain and improve overall mobility. The core muscles play a crucial role in many daily activities, such as lifting, twisting, and bending. A strong core can help improve these movements, making them easier and more efficient.  Maintaining a strong core can also contribute to overall physical endurance and can improve athletic performance.

These muscles include the abdominal muscles, the muscles in the lower back, and the muscles in the hips. It is important to note that core muscles don’t just exist over your tummy (anterior). There are several tiny muscles that are found on your posterior core that do just as important job as the anterior core muscles. 

Core muscles

Generally, patients that come to the practice have a hard time activating their core. Some people may struggle with engaging their core muscles due to weak muscles, poor muscle activation, incorrect form, abdominal fat, or inadequate breathing. Many individuals usually need constant reminders to engage their core during exercise. So, learning to use your core is important before you can start strengthening it. 

Here are some exercises that demand a lot of the core that can help in engaging the core:

Plank: Hold yourself up in a push-up position, but instead of lowering yourself to the ground, hold the position for 30 seconds to a minute.

Plank

Side Plank: Lie on your side, prop yourself up on one elbow, and hold the position for 30 seconds to a minute.

Side plank

Bridge: Lie on your back, bend your knees and lift your hips towards the ceiling. Hold the position for a few seconds and then lower your hips back down to the ground.

Bridge

Single straight leg lift: Lie on your back with both feet flat. Lift one leg to 90 degrees while keeping it straight. Make sure your lower back does arch during this movement ie. push your lower back into the surface you are laying on.

Straight Leg Raise

Russian Twist: Sit on the ground with your knees bent and feet flat. Hold your hands together in front of your chest, and twist your torso from side to side.

Russian Twists

Remember to breathe steadily throughout the exercises and engage your abdominal muscles to maximize the activation of your core. It’s important to start with a moderate intensity and gradually increase the difficulty as your muscles get stronger.

In short, a strong core helps us move and perform daily tasks with ease and efficiency. It also helps prevent injuries by providing stability and support to the spine and upper body. Additionally, strong core muscles can improve posture, increase athletic performance, and enhance the overall quality of life.

If you need any help to improve your core, please dont hesitate to contact us.

Shoulder Stability in Overhead Sports

Posted on February 7th, 2023 by Andries

Shoulder stability and mobility should have a spot in any well thought-out training program for any athlete. Stability and mobility will help with soft tissue health, as well as allow an athlete to perform at his/her highest potential. Good mobility in the shoulder, thoracic and cervical spine can have a positive impact on athletic performance and career longevity. Poor stability and mobility in these areas can lead to compensatory patterns and results in decreased performance and increase risk of injury.

The shoulder is one of the most complex parts the body. The shoulder is a “ball and socket” joint with the socket portion being shallow and therefore providing very little stability via the bony anatomy. As a result, you have to rely on other structures to keep your arm securely inside the shoulder blade. During arm movement the stabilization process is much more complex and requires the four muscles of your rotator cuff to fire to maintain proper positioning of your shoulder joint. 

The action of lifting your arm up above your head requires movement from both your shoulder blade and your arm in order to reach your full range of motion. For this movement to be performed correctly, it requires the proper muscle firing patterns in the shoulder complex. Athletes tend to forget about the small stabilizing muscles of the rotator cuff during their workouts and instead focus on the larger muscle groups. These big muscle groups, especially the “pushing” muscles which are used frequently in sports, can become overdeveloped in comparison to the small stabilizing muscles and result in injuries from this muscle imbalance. One of the most common issues from a muscle imbalance like this is that the small rotator cuff cannot compete with the larger muscles and is unable to perform its job of providing small rotational movements to the ball part of the joint to prevent it from hitting into the socket during arm movements. 

It is important to remember that the rotator cuff is not only firing during athletic activities, it is also responsible for proper positioning of your arm and shoulder blade while you sit with good posture. Increasing the endurance of the rotator cuff will assist in maintaining the integrity of the muscles throughout the season of an overhead athlete. This is why it is important to remember that overhead sports require full kinetic-chain movements for maximum power.  It is vital to keep the core and hips strong and mobile as well in order to decrease the stress placed across the shoulder during the throwing or shooting motion. 

A lack of overhead mobility could be caused by:

  • A lack of thoracic mobility
  • A lack of mobility in the shoulder joint

Results of a lack Shoulder stability: 

A lack of shoulder overhead mobility, can cause compensations in your lifting or throwing technique, which could cause injury or place strain on other muscle groups. Additionally, a lack of overhead shoulder mobility can contribute to pain in the neck or shoulder.

To improve your shoulder stability, strength, and power, contact us and book an appointment so we can assist you in playing your best sports.

Eccentric Exercises

Posted on November 22nd, 2022 by Andries Lodder

Eccentric exercise is the motion of the active muscle while it’s lengthening during a load. It focuses on slowing down the elongation of the muscle process in order to challenge the muscles, which can lead to stronger muscles, faster muscle repair and increasing metabolic rate. Eccentric movement provides a braking mechanism for muscle and tendon groups that are experiencing concentric movement to protect joints from damage as the contraction is released.

Your muscles have tension producing tissue comprising small contractile units referred to as sarcomeres that each contain a thick (myosin) and thin (actin) myofilament that overlap to format a cross-bridge bond. Eccentric actions place a stretch on the sarcomeres to the point where the myofilaments may experience strain, otherwise known as exercise induced delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). This will occur with a quick overload or unaccustomed exercises.

Why should we train our muscles with Eccentric exercise?

Eccentric exercises stress the more difficult part of a movement and therefore do more micro-damage to whatever muscle group you’re working. This will improve the size and quality of your tissue. Therefore, this results in a faster rate of muscle and strength growth.

Lasting changes in mobility require not just the stretching of the muscles and connective tissues as the improvements in range of motion (ROM) seen tend to be short lasting. In order to create long lasting effects, we must move our bodies through the new-found ROM and add load through it. Movement creates neuromuscular activations of the stretched muscles, which essentially teaches our bodies how to use that ROM. Greater loads generate greater neuromuscular activation, and is necessary in being able to keep this change in ROM. Eccentric overload exercises create muscular stretch and high amounts of activation, which both contribute to lasting changes in mobility. Evidently, it leads to sarcomerogenisis (the generation of new sarcomers – muscle cells), which lengthens the muscle itself. Therefore, your flexibility will be increased.

Eccentric exercises have been shown to help build incredible strength and decrease risk of injuries. There are a couple of reasons why. First, eccentrics make you use muscle over momentum. And second, they help build your connective tissue.

Data reported by several studies suggests that stretch combined with overloading, as in eccentric contractions, is the most effective stimulus for promoting muscle growth and enhancing the neural drive to muscle. These neurological improvements, along with the changes in the elastic properties of the musculotendinous unit, contribute to the increase in speed, power, strength, and agility.

To improve your performance, contact us and book your assessment!

Balance and Stability in Sports

Posted on October 24th, 2022 by Andries Lodder

Balance and stability in sport, and everyday life, is essential to ones performances and well-being. Balance is our ability to keep our centre of mass within the limits of our base of support, whether this is static or dynamic. It is responsible for keeping us upright whether standing still or moving. Stability is the ability to control forces, which may be unbalanced, in order to remain balanced.

These principles are important for almost all sporting movements whether it is kicking, throwing, using a racquet, running or even during a golf swing. If we have a stable base, we can produce more force, more efficiently and effectively. The more stable the base of the movement, the more force we can generate off this base. Generally more force means better performance. Having a more stable base of movement also means less force is ‘lost’ in the kinetic chain.

From an injury prevention perspective, it is simple, the more stable we are, the less prone we are to injury. For example, instability in the hips, often called a ‘trendelenberg sign’ changes the biomechanics of almost the whole body. It predisposes someone to: lower back pain, gluteal tendinopathy, trochanteric bursitis, ITB syndrome, patella-femoral pain syndrome, shin splints, tibialis posterior tendinopathy, plantar fasciopathy, among other conditions. The more stable the base of our movement, the more we can control the force throughout our body.

In older indviduals, who may or may not participate in sports as well, balance and stability is key to reducing your ‘fall risk’. As we get older, and our bones become more brittle, the risk of one falling is higher, and rate of breaking bones is significantly increased. Research shows that improving your balance and core stability allows one to live a healthier, safer life and complete their regular daily activities with less worry, and less risk of falling and getting injured. 

For both athletes and more sedentary individuals, balance and stability can be trained using equipment such as airex mats, bosu balls, and doing specific movements unilaterally. Core stability is best trained with other movements, not simply doing crunches and planks for extended periods of time. It is vital to train along the kinetic chains on one’s body.

For an individualized exercise programme catered to your own needs, contact us and book an appointment!

Pad your body for Padel!

Posted on September 28th, 2022 by Andries Lodder

Padel is the latest up and coming for sport. I’ts great for fitness, co-ordination and overall fun! But jumping into any sport without practice and warming up brings its challenges. This article will share the most common movements, shots and injuries, followed by some exercises to help pad your body.

According to a study in the Journal of Human Sport & Exercise (2013), these are the most common movements throughout a match of Padel:

Conditioning Exercises

A few exercises to help you prepare your body for a game of Padel include:

Side Steps/Crab Walks: Place both feet hips width apart, with your feet facing forwards. Bend your knees, and push your backside out. Slowly step sideways, leading with your outer leg.

Lateral Hops: Place 5-10 small items, like a cone, approximately 30cm apart. Stand on one leg on the side of your cones. Hop sideways, landing gently with a bend in your knee. Once reaching the other side, swap your feet and repeat back to the starting point.

Lunges: Stand with your feet together. Step forward with 1 foot, and bend both your knees. Straighten up completely and repeat the movement.

Common Injuries

The most common injuries occurring in Padel are similar to those of tennis and squash. As one begins playing many hours, we develop injuries such as tendonitis, and muscular strains. Tennis Elbow and Rotator Cuff Strains are the most common injuries resulting from Padel. Despite the low weight of the racquets, we exert force into playing our shots. This can come as shock to one’s body if they are not used to such movements.

Tennis elbow is an irritation of the tissue connecting the forearm muscle to the elbow. It is experienced on the outside of the arm, between the elbow and forearm. An exercise to prevent, and treat tennis elbow is wrist curls. Holding a weight or similar item, bend the wrists upwards and downwards, whilst keeping the rest of your arm still.

Rotator Cuff injuries occur to any, or multiple, rotator cuff muscles. These are the muscles of your shoulder girdle, and are primarily responsible for internal and external rotation of one’s arm, as well as stabilizing one’s shoulder girdle.

Exercises for Rotator Cuff Strain:

Shoulder External Rotation: Stand up-right, with your shoulders back and down. Tuck your elbows into your sides, with your arms bent at 90 degrees. Holding a resistance band, or weight, rotate your arms externally (outwards), whilst keeping your elbows tucked in.

Horizontal Abduction: Stand upright, with your shoulders back and down. Raise your arms to your chest height, in front of your body. Holding a resistance band, or weights, open your arms at your chest level, squeezing your shoulder blades together. Keep your arms straight throughout the movement.

Wall Slides: Place a resistance band around your wrists. Standing close to a wall, place your wrists, forearms and elbows on the wall at your shoulder’s width. Keep your shoulder blades set back and down. Without raising your shoulders, slide your arms up and down the wall. Keep your wrists and elbows against the wall throughout the movement.

For any aches, pains, and overall strength and conditioning, contact us to assist you with your specific exercise programe, catering to your wants and needs!

Kickboxing World Champs

Posted on September 6th, 2022 by Andries Lodder

https://www.backabuddy.co.za/champion/project/alejandra-aucamp-2022

Hi! Ally, my daughter, absolutely loves kickboxing! Please help us support her dream! My name is Yolandi Aucamp, and I am from Western Cape, Cape Town, Tableview.   

We would like to call on your support!!

The funds raised here will go towards Ally’s participation at the World Kickboxing Championships in Italy! WOW! How amazing is that!!

We are so proud to share that she brought home a gold medal and the National title for her division in Points-fighting and a silver and bronze in her two other divisions!

Her hard work and dedication to her sport is paying off! She now has the opportunity to live out her dream even further – to represent her country on an International level!! She has been selected to represent South Africa as part of the National Team in two events in two of her divisions!

Firstly, Ally was included in the National team taking part at the WAKO Africa Continental Championships held in Benoni from 26-28 August 2022, where she received 2 silver medals in both her divisions. And even more exciting for her was to be selected for the National team taking part at the WAKO World Championships in Italy from 29 September to 9 October 2022. Again, this will be a great stepping stone towards being eligible for both the World Combat Games in 2023 and the Olympic team in 2028!

Now, this is where we would like to call on everyone’s support again! We would love to support her and give her this opportunity to compete internationally!

Unfortunately, the costs are enormous (you can follow the link and see the breakdown) and it feels out of our reach! Since each participant must pay their own way, we will need all the help and support we can get!! But I believe with the help of family, friends and kind sponsors we will be able to achieve this goal and support her Italy dreams! Every R50 donated towards this goal gets us closer to the end!

Funding will cover entry fees, airfares (domestic and international) and airport taxes, accommodation, transportation, meals, team clothing, WAKO approved Equipment (the kit she has at the moment she will not be allowed to compete in), travel Insurance, Schengen VISA and passport costs. We hope to raise enough money so that she and her Dad (as shaperone/her coach at home) can go to Italy! 

Thank you for taking the time to support Ally and her love of kickboxing, whether by giving or sharing! God bless!If you want to read more about Ally’s road to the Worlds Champs, please read on:

She started her kickboxing journey at the start of 2019 at Venters Martial Arts and Kickboxing in Duynefontein. During the past 3,5 years, she has enjoyed her training and has been developing her skills with the help of Shihan Dave. 

Training during Covid was tough, but she and her dad kept up with the training at home during the lockdown. As soon as restrictions allowed, they were back at the club, training with the rest of the students again. 

She truly shows great talent for the sport. In 2019, only months after starting the sport, she achieved Western Province colours through NMA ISKA. Unfortunately, since the pandemic prohibited all sporting events worldwide in 2020, all students were denied the opportunity to fight for their SA colours. 2020 was not the year for sports – anywhere! 

In 2021, Ally could not compete at the Western Cape Championships, due to contracting Covid in July. It was a long road to full recovery, but she started her training again at the end of November.

Luckily, as things returned to normal and she regained her strength, she once again participated in the Cape Town Championships in Ottery during January this year. 

She achieved 3 gold medals and was included in the Cape Town Team to participate at the Western Cape Kickboxing Championships this past March. Here she attained gold and 2 silver medals in the Tatami divisions. 

This led to her selection for the Western Cape Team that took part at the South African Kickboxing Championships in Mossel Bay where she performed so well!

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The Final Stretch of the Year

Posted on August 25th, 2022 by Andries Lodder

By Daniel Sauer

We are in the final quarter of the year, and our bodies may be feeling the effects of every day life. It may seem like there aren’t enough hours in a day to fit in exercise and stretching, or sometimes those meetings run a bit over time. As a result, our bodies experience stiffness and shortened muscles as a result of our every day lives. Have you ever thought about how much time we spend sitting each day? What about the time spent driving, sitting in meetings, dinner, and of course, at work? All those weekend games of Padel, Soccer, Tennis and Golf that we don’t stretch after?

Stretching daily has many physical and mental benefits. Stretching provides your body with an increased range of motion and flexibility, allows you to function and play sport more optimally, and helps release endorphins to promote relaxation. Furthermore, another benefit of stretching is to reduce one’s risks for injury. The best part is that stretching only take a few minutes per day and can be done before bed or as you wake up, So you don’t need to worry about it being too time consuming!

We would like to provide you with a few stretches to ease those tired legs, and help you feel much looser and ready to tackle each days challenges and activities!

Stretches:

  • Hip Flexors and Quadriceps: Hold the stretch for up to 30 seconds per side, and repeat twice. Place your leg on the wall, and knee on the floor. Place your 2nd leg in front of you. Keeping your back upright, push your hips forward.
  • Glute Stretch: Hold the stretch for up to 30 seconds per side, and repeat twice. (You can do either of these). Lie on your back with 1 knee bent. Place the other ankle on the bent knee. Hold your bent thigh and pull your knee towards your chest. Alternatively, Sit on the edge of a chair. Place your ankle on your knee and slowly lean your body forward.
  • Hamstring and Calf Neural dynamics stretch: Do 10 repetitions per side, and repeat twice per leg. Lie on your back. Bend your knee and pull towards your chest. Slowly straighten the leg you’re holding and point your toes down towards you. Relax your foot and bend your knee again. Repeat this movement 10 time per leg.

Chronic Pain Awareness

Posted on August 25th, 2022 by Andries Lodder

By Daniel Sauer

Many chronic pain sufferers live without ongoing chronic pain solutions and, as a result, their quality of life diminishes progressively over time, including their physical, mental and emotional wellbeing.

The medical definition of chronic pain is any pain lasting longer than 12 consecutive weeks. Unlike acute pain, which comes on suddenly for a clear reason and heals quickly, chronic pain is a long-term condition, often persisting for months. Chronic pain, also known as chronic pain syndrome, can become a “tolerable pain”, whereby the person experiencing the pain can ignore it or live with it long-term.

For people suffering from chronic pain syndrome, identifying the underlying cause can be a frustrating process as the reasons for chronic, non-specific pain isn’t always obvious. But uncovering the underlying cause contributing to your pain can help you implement necessary solutions for managing chronic pain.

Chronic pain conditions can seriously affect daily activities and quality of life. Such as:

Some types of chronic pain conditions include:

When an individual suffers from chronic pain, the natural response is doing anything to reduce it. For many, that instinct is to rest and relax. This response can initiate a vicious cycle of self-limiting activity. Too much rest can be detrimental and result in atrophy (or wasting) of the muscles, leading to further health problems, including poor posture, less joint stability, and other structural problems.

Physical activity is known to reduce pain intensity and disability as well as provide a range of other benefits including improvements in strength, flexibility, and endurance, a decrease in cardiovascular and metabolic syndrome risk, improved bone health, and improved cognition and mood.

Recent research recommends that because physical movement is so important in improving chronic pain, doctors should prescribe it to patients, similar to how they prescribe medications.

The benefits of exercise on Chronic Pain outweigh any cons you may think. Examples are:

So don’t just accept the pain and discomfort, contact us today and see how we can assist you with a personalised exercise programme. This programme caters to your individual needs and activities.

Importance of a Biokineticist

Posted on June 7th, 2022 by Andries Lodder

A Biokineticist is a medical professional that prescribes individualized exercise and physical activity for both rehabilitation and the promotion of health and quality of life.

We as biokineticists, understand how the human body moves and what it needs to stay active and healthy. We can be used for specific injury rehabilitation, strength training as well as maintaining a good quality of life through exercise and movement. But why is this important?

When we don’t use our muscles regularly, they begin to weaken. This means that our bodies are at a higher risk of injury as our muscles aren’t strong enough to do their job properly anymore. With this lack of activity, we also start to lose our flexibility. Tight muscles can increase the amount of tension placed on various joints causing pain and discomfort. The weaker we get and the more pain we start to experience, the urge to exercise decreases even more and the cycle continues.

By exercising, we are moving our muscles through a full range of motion, thus taking pressure off those painful joints. We are also strengthening our muscles each time we train. This means that each group of muscles is doing their intended job and we are decreasing our risk of unnecessary injury. Exercising also increases the production of feel-good hormones. The combination of these feel-good hormones, the decrease in joint pain and the improved strength makes us want to train more and more, thus creating a much more productive and healthy cycle. 

Unfortunately, when we exercise or play sport, we sometimes land up with an injury. Luckily for you, we can help with that too. How do we help?

We start with a full assessment, taking into account the history of any previous injuries, any conditions you may have, how the injury happens and what goals you want out of the rehabilitation process. We then do a full postural assessment as well as looking at your strength and flexibility levels. 

Your personalized rehabilitation process is then based off these findings. We help you with every movement, ensuring that they are done with the correct form. This ensures that the muscles are working optimally and that no other muscles are doing the job of the injured one. Each muscle in your body has a specific role and if it is not fulfilling that role, it increases your chance of re-injury. 

We are also able to help those that are not injured and just want some kind of training that is specific to their sport. We prescribe movements that are most commonly used in your sport. This helps you avoid unnecessary exercises that offer no benefit to your goals. Improving on these specific exercises will greatly improve your performance.

We look at how you progress during each session and work toward the goals set out at the beginning ensuring that you reach them as soon as possible. This can be a fast process but it can also be slow depending on the extent of the condition. The most important aspects for us are to ensure that your body is working optimally and that you are able to return to exercise or sport without any fear of hurting yourself again. 

If you need any assistance with an injury or would like to start your fitness and health journey, feel free to contact us.

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