Mark Pennington Physiotherapy

30/11/2024

This post is written with a high degree of emotion but one I feel compelled to write.

Following a lengthy relationship, Mark Pennington Physiotherapy will no longer be associated with Trey Westbury or Happi Physiotherapy

Moving forward if you need physiotherapy advice I am available on 0435 973 527 or email on [email protected]

13/11/2024

It has been some time between posts due to trying to minimise mobile and social media. Just thought I would check in to see how everyone is doing.

I will attempt to add regular “words of wisdom”

31/05/2024

Mindfulness - the quality or state of being conscious of something. Our physical well being relies on the ability to be mindful of our bodies. Once we are aware of our bodies and how we behave, then we can begin to understand how it shapes us.

Whilst we at MPPSC don’t believe we need mediation etc for this to occur, we believe that being able to understand the state of being of our body is crucial.

Understanding enables us to listen to our bodies and have the ability to improve/alter/change our behaviours. This process of improvement through awareness ultimately optimises our function leading to improved physical well being. Remember our behaviour is what creates how we feel

Habits are not always good habits

BE BETTER

17/02/2024

06/02/2024

Being able to re-tension our “pulley system” is a key part of of being able to behave and move better.

As we know, our behaviour and habits shape us.

We also understand that changing our behaviour will take time. The abiltiy to create good habits can take around 10 weeks.

So within this period of time we need to work more on re-tensioning to firstly improve our muscles resting lengths along withth an improvement in the “stacking” of our joints into better more “neutral” positions.

This will help to reset us im better starting postures whilst we work towards improving our behaviour or function which in turn leads to prevention.

Trigger point release or myofascial release is the answer, but how does this work?

More on this next time.

BE BETTER

15/11/2023

We need to look after our bodies better, learn to behave better and be better.

This is a nice analogy that continues on from an earlier post about a car and how it ages relative to its use.

Imagine if you were told that you could have any car in the world and the price didn’t matter. What would you choose?

Now imagine if you were then told that this was going to be the only car you own in your lifetime, you will never have the chance to buy another car. Would your answer change?

Well, it doesn’t matter what car you choose, it comes down to how you look after it. How you drive it. How you maintain it. How you store it. What fuel you use. The list goes on.

Now imagine the car is your body. We definitely only get one and it ages exactly the same way as your car. It depends on how we move it, how we use it and how we fuel it. Therefore we need to learn how to look after our body better to maintain our function and quality of life.

BE BETTER

27/10/2023

23/08/2023

Have you noticed that the AGING PROCESS appears to accelerate the older we become? Why does this happen and why might this be the case? Is there anything that we can do to change this from happening?

If we begin by looking at how we age from 20-40 years of age, the aging process appears to be relatively slow. During this period, we have similar components within a number of areas of our lives. We are usually engaged in organised sport and activities which keeps us fit and healthy in addition to being social. Our work is usually progressing with minimal to moderate levels of responsibility and is easily left at work. It has less impact on our lifestyle. Time pressure is also less of an issue with more time available for oneself. We are also exploring and creating new experiences, friends and partners.

Now if we see how that compares to 40-60 years of age, where the aging process appears to accelerate. We see people age very quickly. During this period, a number these areas of our lives are changing. We are less likely to be engaged in organised activity which basically means we become less active and even less social. We have increased levels work responsibilities and leadership. With this brings increased levels of stress and a transition into roles involving more supervision and training of less experienced colleagues than activity. Time pressures have increased with the potential introduction of a partner and children. There is less 'me time'.

We also find as a result of these altered and usually lower levels of functioning, our capacity is diminished. With time we also function more out of habit and in a less than ideal manner. So, if we try and slow the aging process, we need to start to increase our capacity and improve our behaviour with better habits. We need to have more time to fill one's cup and maintain levels of social and intellectual interaction. Basically, this is explaining our pillars of wellness which I will explore in another post soon.

The goal is to stay and feel younger and to be happy, healthy, resilient and more functional.

BE BETTER

16/08/2023

Our bodies are amazing. They strive for balance or equilibrium or what we term homeostasis. The closer we maintain our bodies to this the better they function and the longer they function for.

So, ‘Everything in moderation’ is an awesome way to look after our bodies. The best way to assist in this is to learn how to listen to our bodies and what it is trying to tell us.

Imagine how hard it is to maintain balance or homeostasis if we don’t hear or listen to our alarms.

For example if we can’t or don’t listen to pain we will place our bodies at an increased risk of injury that for some time it will have the capacity to adapt to and handle. But over time our capacity and adaptation will decrease thus leading to long term pain and dysfunction.
Learning to BE BETTER by simply identifying and listening to our bodies cues and signs