Why are we seeing so many and what can you do to help yourself??

Over the last few weeks at the osteopathy clinic in Cobham we’ve seen a flurry of patient’s with sports and exercise related injuries. Why could this be and what sort of conditions are we seeing??

The types of conditions we’ve been seeing have been; muscle strains, ankle sprains, tennis and golfers elbow, low back injury, achillies strains and the list just goes on…….

Why are we seeing so many?? In Cobham, Oxshott, Weybridge and the surrounding areas, a lot of people are very active and enjoy a wide range of different sports. We’re coming out of the winter period and becoming more active. Great news but can sometimes come with a risk of injury. Lack of fitness due to a period out of the sport you enjoy, taking up something new as a new years resolution or popping off on ski holidays for the first time in a year.

So, what advice can we offer to you guys to help reduce likelihood of needing to get help?

• Be really strict with your warm up before sport. Think dynamic warm up. Try a low impact slower version of the thing you’re about to do rather than stretching pre exercise.
• Don’t exercise for too long as you’re getting back into it. A quick 3 hour game of tennis after not playing for a few months might be a mistake! Be patient and build up over time.
• Give yourself good rest days between sessions. If you never give your body time to recover this accumulates and weakens parts of our bodies which can lead to injury.
• Cool down properly. Most people say ‘i just don’t have time to stretch after exercise’. My answer to that is simple. MAKE TIME!!! Sorry for shouting 😉 So many injuries are partially created by us not releasing tight muscle after sport leading to shortened tight muscle when we next exercise. This builds up over time until something goes pop! Think long term. 3 minutes stretching after exercise might = significant reduction of likelihood of injury and time not doing the thing you love.
• If you don’t have time to stretch try foam rolling. It’s much better than doing nothing!
• The biggest and most important bit of advice is LISTEN TO YOUR BODY!! If during sport you feel a little niggle or tightness due to over exertion STOP. Often your body will recover in a few days if you do this. If you push through and ignore pain (which is commonly your bodies alarm system to say something’s not right) you may well cause significant further damage. Early warning signs are so hugely important to listen too!!
• Enjoy your exercise and remember most of us are not training for the Olympics. Don’t push too far out of your comfort zone. A challenge is good but again think long term. Do you want to be playing the sport you love till you’re in your 80’s?? Be the tortoise not the hare.

I hope you find some of these tips helpful and if following these simple steps you’re still struggling you know where to find us.

Thanks for reading

After the amazing success of the 1st charity day last September ’24 which raised over £1000 we are doing it again in collaboration with The 225 Club. This time the charity we are supporting is The Little Roo Neonatal Fund based in Ashford and St. Peters Hospital. They do incredible work to help with the care of babies born very early, or with unexpected problems.

The date is Friday 6th June ’25 at The Leatherhead golf club. We will start teeing off at 12.15, bacon rolls and coffees from 11.30 and the range available to those who want a warm up from 11.15.

The price is £80 and of course there will be a few additional challenges like longest drive and closest to the pin to up the anti and to raise as much money as possible.

Please book on asap as the places are limited.

For payment and to secure your place please follow this Paypal link and include your full name – Paypal.me/jonathanjuviler

I’m an Osteopath, Pilates Instructor, ex professional ballet and contemporary dancer and mum to 2 little girls..

I first came across Osteopathy whilst a student at The Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance. During this time I had many injuries, usually related to overuse/overtraining. I found my body responded really well to the hands on, body-wide approach to treatment getting me back into action faster than other forms of treatment I’d tried.

In the final year of my dance training I sustained a serious foot injury, which meant months off from dancing (and weight bearing in general) just after graduation. It was a stressful and frustrating time. A daily Pilates-based body conditioning workout was all I could do. The silver lining… a quicker return from injury, with improved strength, posture and mobility than previously. This inspired me to train as a Pilates Instructor whilst in between dance contracts and I completed my training with Body Control Pilates in 2007.

Going on to retrain as an Osteopath in 2011 felt like a natural progression and I qualified with Distinction from the British School of Osteopathy in 2016 and was an academic prize winner in my third year. Since then, I was fortunate enough to work as part of the Healthcare Team for the young dancers’ programme at the London Contemporary Dance school alongside various other general Osteopathic practices.

Having my girls in 2019 and 2022, I have first-hand experience of the exhaustion and physical and emotional pressures of family life. I also understand the frustrations of trying to ‘recover’ from pregnancy and birth when there just isn’t time! I love supporting Mums in finding their bodies again at whatever stage they are after having children.

I enjoy treating patients from all walks of life, but a few specific areas I can help with:

• Overuse injuries – Injury doesn’t always mean stopping exercise completely. In fact, continuing some form of exercise is often important for recovery. With my combined clinical and exercise expertise, I’m well-equipped to help tailor your workouts to better aid recovery.
• Injury prevention – Sometimes, we just feel stiff and tight no matter how much stretching or self-care we do. Having regular treatments when our body isn’t feeling quite right can help us get back on track and prevent injury happening in the first place. We send our cars in for regular MOTs so why do we not do this for our bodies?
• Sports-related injuries – With my lifelong background in Dance, Pilates and Yoga, coupled with 4 years of experience working with the C.A.T. healthcare team at the London Contemporary Dance School, I am well-placed to manage sports-related injuries and can create tailored, evidence-based rehabilitation plans specific to your injury.
• Managing longer term issues – We can tolerate a certain amount of discomfort day-to-day without it seemingly affecting our normal activities. However, when pain or niggles are ignored and persist for awhile, the body may not be able to compensate as well and other issues gradually emerge that exacerbate the initial problem. I can help you to understand these compensatory patterns and how to work with them as well as giving specific treatment and exercises to help manage symptoms in the longer term.

To book a session with Lucy please call the clinic on – 07932022503 or email info@fourhealth.co.uk. You can also email Lucy directly if you have any specific questions about how she may be able to help at lucy@fourhealth.co.uk

Four Health Osteopathy and The 225 Club are delighted to invite you to our inaugural Charity Golf Day!

We are raising much needed funds for the wonderful charity The White Lodge

The White Lodge are a fantastic locally based charity in Chertsey who provide a wide range of services and support that enable children with a range of disabilities and their families and carers, to lead fulfilling lives.

The day will be hosted at the beautiful Leatherhead Club in Surrey on Saturday 28^th September 2024.

Registration will be from 9am with tea, coffee, and bacon rolls provided from 10.15am. The driving range with be available to warm up between 9.30am and 10.30am.

First four ball departs at 11am, and we have space for 24 golfers to join us.  

There will be games and prizes to be won along the way, and of course ample refreshments to help you forgot the near misses.

A prize giving ceremony and moment of thanks from the charity will take place after we finish. Big thanks to the guys at The Wine Reserve in Cobham for providing some of the prizes.  

Whether you plan to be competing for the much-coveted main trophy, or simply want to enjoy an afternoon in the sun with some drinks, we welcome all standards of golfer for this wonderful cause!

The price is just £75 per person with all proceeds going directly to the charity.

You can confirm your place by clicking on this PayPal payment link. Please include your name. Paypal.me/jonathanjuviler

Treatment room to rent Cobham location, suitable for:

Osteopath

Chiropractor

Podiatrist

Acupuncturist

Physical Therapist

Reflexologist

Or similar.

The clinic has been well established in Cobham for a number of years now with a great reputation. We have osteopaths, physiotherapists and massage therapists working here and are looking for practitioners in the local area looking to take on clinic space but that are also keen on being part of a team. We’ll be running CPD discussion groups if you’re interested in joining and regularly cross refer.

The clinic rooms are spacious and bright with aircon and wifi. We have a kitchen, waiting area and separate entrance and also access to the gym on the ground floor. There are currently a variety of hours during the week available.

Please get in touch if you’re looking for a treatment room to rent in Cobham. For more info either call – 07932022503 or email info@fourhealth.co.uk

Hi all,

For people into golf it’s great fun, good exercise (mainly the walking and seeing how far you can throw a club on a bad day!) and great for social interactions but when conditions like golfers elbow, back pain or shoulder injury holds you back what do you do??

Why is Golf Hard?

Golf is also difficult! There is a huge amount of info online to ‘help’. When you go onto Youtube and search for anything to do with golf technique be it; correct grip, through to ‘why do I keep hitting the ball into a hedge on the right side of the fairway??’ you get hundreds of videos sometimes with millions of views! I think one of the reasons why it’s so hard is because it’s one of the few sports that you hit a totally stationery ball. You have a lot of time to think about technique or as they’re known, ‘swing thoughts’ before you hit a shot, unlike tennis for example, where a ball is travelling at speed to you and you have almost zero time to think about correct technique. We’ve all been there whilst standing over the ball I am sure! ‘Are my feet in the right place?’, ‘is my club face aligned?’, ‘is the humidity in the air going to cause me to thin the **** out of this shot??’ etc etc. It’s hard!

Golf Related Injury

In the clinic in Cobham I see, as you can imagine a lot of golfers. Surrey has more golf courses per square mile than anywhere else in the world apparently. (That might be made up, but sounds impressive.) Injuries common to golfers range from; golfers elbow and tennis elbow, shoulder and rotator cuff injuries, back and neck pain, hip issues, big toe issues, the list really goes on and on! As the golf swing is such a dynamic movement, very asymetric and also starts, as mentioned from a relatively stationary position you can potentially over load any part of your body and cause injury.

How an Osteopath can help

Let me make this clear, I am not a golf pro, however I have a particular set of skills (a bit like Liam Neeson but minus the killing bit) that mean I can look at how someone moves in their swing and link it back to the area of your body that’s injured or in pain, understand from a detailed case history what factors may also be contributing to a break down in efficient movement, like an old injury or previous surgery. What can be very useful is feeding this info back to your golf pro if you’re in the process of getting lessons. This will hopefully help them with technique changes that may be different to the so called normal approach to a golf swing. Make sense? Good!

Dave’s Story

Dave, (not his actual name. Its’s David;) came to see me recently for low back pain. He plays a lot of golf to a decent standard but has really been struggling to even finish a round due to pain. On examination his upper back has so stiff and restricted in movement. When I then got him to demonstrate his swing to me he was having to rotate through his low back as he just couldn’t get the rotation to happen higher up where he needed it. A couple of sessions of treatment, some suggested upper back exercises and an email to his pro explaining this all equalled a significant improvement very quickly. Not complicated when you know what to look for but Dave couldn’t work it out on his own. Obviously I now take full credit for his recently reduced golf handicap!

I hope some of this waffle is of interest to someone and please do pass it on to anyone you know that plays and is struggling with injury or pain particulary if they’re getting lessons and finding it tricky to move in the way they may be getting told too. Thanks so much as always. x

2021 has been another interesting year to say the least and I truly hope everyone has been doing ok? With the highs and lows that the pandemic has thrown at everyone it has felt a bit like a rollercoaster at times.  Working with you guys at varying points has been so rewarding, hearing your stories, trying to offer support when I can and sometimes being someone to lean on when injury or even just day to day life gets a little much. I constantly feel a sense of privilege that my patients feel they want to and can talk about anything with me. Moving forward into 2022 I am looking forward to working with some of you. Being proactive about how you feel rather than reactive can be very useful particularly those that are super sporty and active and also those of you with more chronic pain conditions. Please do feel free to get in touch if you have any questions about management and what we can do together to keep you feeling great. We remain open and of course following government and General Osteopathic Council’s guidelines on practice standards until Thursday 23rd Dec. We reopen after the xmas break on Tuesday 4th. Emergency appointments can be scheduled during the break if needed. I sincerely hope everyone has a great break over the next couple of weeks and sending out lots of positive vibes to you and your families. All the best, Jonny.

Is working from home a pain in the neck?? Maybe this will help…

I am sure many of you are now having to work from home, saying goodbye (for now!) to those lovely ergonomically set up desks.
Using laptops, although convenient can lead to issues like neck pain, upper back pain and even headaches originating form the neck. This tends to happen because we spend long amounts of time looking down at the screen.
Have a look at the video below for a couple of tips on how to reduce the likelihood of this happening and possibly reduce symptoms if you’re already suffering. 

Stay well and positive.

YOU ‘CAN’ HANDLE THE TRUTH! 👇

Having just got off the phone with a friend of mine who is potentially suffering with a disc injury causing weakness in his leg it amazes me that the therapist he’s been seeing hasn’t even considered this as a possibility!

Instead, treatment has been carried out with no diagnosis and no explanation of what may be causing the issue!

This blows my mind!!🤯

We don’t always have the answers. If in doubt we should REFER to get more info and to help get patients better quicker.

In my experience people want to know what’s happening in their bodies. Information is power 💪

If you go and see a healthcare practitioner it is your right to ask questions and that the treatment you receive is justified.

At Four Health we spend time trying to get to the bottom of what is causing an issue, what’s maintaining an issue and what the issue actually is. Please feel free to get in touch with us with any questions.