A stress fracture is a small crack or area of bone damage caused by repeated loading, often from running, jumping, dancing or a sudden increase in training. It usually causes localised pain that gets worse with activity and settles with rest. Early recognition matters. Many stress fractures recover well with modified activity and a gradual return to loading, but some sites need more cautious management because they have a higher risk of delayed healing or a complete fracture.

Limited resources forced our rugby club support department to clarify priorities, ownership and how decisions were made. This experience explores why better support is not always about adding more — and how to recognise where investment genuinely matters.

Many people in Colchester and beyond associate physiotherapy with massage, joint movements, stretching or other forms of hands-on treatment. These approaches can sometimes help reduce pain, improve movement and make it easier to begin or progress rehabilitation. However, good hands-on therapy is not simply a case of a physiotherapist finding a painful spot and working on it as hard as possible. It should be part of a considered assessment and treatment plan built around your

Try this right now. Stand up, lift one foot off the floor, and see how long you can hold it before you wobble, reach for something, or put your foot back down. Ten seconds may sound trivial, but how you perform on this simple test says more about your long-term health than most people realise. In a long-term study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, adults aged 51-75 were followed for more than a decade. Those unable to hold a 10-second single-leg stance were

Returning to sport after an injury can be exciting, but it can also feel uncertain. Once the worst of the pain has passed, you may wonder whether your body is strong enough, whether you can cope with training and what will happen if symptoms return. These are sensible questions. Returning to sport is not simply about waiting a certain number of weeks. It is about preparing your body and mind for the demands you are going to place on them. What does return to sport mean? Retur

Heat therapy, also called thermotherapy, has been used for many years to ease pain and improve movement. Patients often ask whether they should apply heat to a painful or injured area. The answer depends on the type of problem, how long it has been present and how the area responds. How does heat affect the body? Heat can cause several local changes, including: Increased blood flow. Higher cell activity. Reduced muscle tension. Changes in how the nervous system processes pain

After an acute injury, one of the most common questions patients ask is: “Should I ice it?” Ice can make a painful area feel more comfortable, but it is less clear whether it helps the injury heal faster or improves the final outcome. What does ice do? Cold treatment, also called cryotherapy, lowers the temperature of the skin and nearby tissues. It can also reduce local blood flow and slow nerve signals. The most reliable effect is pain relief. Cooling the skin can reduce ho

Many people know that exercise is good for their health, yet struggle to make it part of everyday life. One reason is that modern life has removed many of the physical tasks that used to be necessary. We can travel, work, shop and communicate while sitting for long periods. Exercise therefore requires a conscious decision. We evolved to move Human beings evolved in environments where walking, carrying, climbing, lifting and occasional running were part of daily life. Modern l

Athletic screening only matters if it helps turn uncertainty into something useful. In environments shaped by change, jeopardy, and competing demands, the challenge is not collecting more information, it is filtering noise into signal and translating that signal into better decisions. In this article, I look at what screening is really for, how to curate the right signal, and why stakeholder buy-in is so important if the process is going to work in practice.

Discover how effective expectation setting is one of the most powerful tools to influence outcomes in elite sports.

In this series conclusion I highlight the benefits, challenges and uncomfortable truths of implementing risk stratification in the messy reality of elite sport.

Player availability is excellent risk management. In this second part of the three part series we build from the foundation of risk stratification and discuss how to operationalise risk management before moving onto part three where we highlight the challenges of implementing this in the messy reality of elite sport.

Player availability is excellent risk management. In the following three part series we introduce risk stratification, how to operationalise risk management and the challenges of implementing this approach in the messy reality of elite sport.

Choosing and climbing your mountain: A guide for aspiring physiotherapists.

When should you quit physio? Here we discuss the signs to keep your recovery on track!

An practical guide to choosing the right physiotherapist for you.

Love it, tolerate it or even hate it, exercise is synonymous with the quest to live better. It’s accepted dogma that exercise is a healthy activity, but why is it so hard to make it happen? Why do we start with great intentions but succumb to the little voice in our heads telling us to stop? One significant reason is modernity and the mismatch between our environments and physical needs. Physical activity, let alone exercise, is incredibly avoidable in the 21st century, leadi

This post follows Running Biomechanics and Foot Strike Patterns and Running Workload and Body Weight, which explain the mechanical and training foundations of injury-risk management. Many runners diligently following mileage schedules and manage their weight, yet still develop frustrating knee and foot pain. Why does this happen despite having strong foundations in place? Forces and Common Injuries in Running The body is subject to 3-4 times your bodyweight during the stance

In the previous post, we explored running biomechanics and foot strike patterns, including why there is unlikely to be one ideal foot strike for every runner. Two key conclusions emerged: There is unlikely to be a single optimal foot strike pattern for all runners. Understanding how the body absorbs and generates forces during running allows us to prepare sensibly, maximise enjoyment, and reduce injury risk. Running injuries typically develop gradually from cumulative loading

This is the first article in a three-part guide to reducing running-related injury risk. Millions of people worldwide run to improve fitness, reduce stress, enhance wellbeing, or simply for the joy of it. Over thousands of years, the human body has adapted to challenging environments, with hypotheses suggesting that the demands of persistence hunting and long-distance foraging drove skeletal adaptations optimised for efficient endurance running (1). Roughly 10% of the populat