Salisbury physio seeing rise of "Joe Wicks" injuries since lockdown
The Body Coach got a lot of people moving during the pandemic with his online sessions
A physio from Salisbury is urging people to make sure they warm up properly and have the right equipment before they do any exercise.
Jenny Mears from Sarum Physio says, since lockdown, she's seen a rise in what she's calling "Joe Wicks" injuries.
Where people have been inspired by Joe to get moving and take part in his PE sessions over lockdown, many haven't been well prepared for it.
The Body Coach wanted to get the country up and about from home during the pandemic and posted regular short workout videos on his Youtube channel.
He got well over 75 million views from around the world.
During this time, Sarum Physio have seen things like repetitive strain injuries, jumper's knee, tennis elbow and even a stress fracture in someone's foot.
Jenny says she's not discouraging people to exercise, or blaming Joe himself, but hopes we look after ourselves.
She told Greatest Hits Radio:
"I think first of all what happened was, in the first lockdown, obviously the weather was fantastic and so for a lot of people it was an opportunity to have a bit of time to look after themselves and go for either something new or just say right I'm going to lose a bit of weight or get myself a little fitter etc but then not actually really knowing that perhaps they shouldn't be doing daily exercise without a bit of preparation and warm up, so to start with I think people were getting quite passionate and in particular the footwear was quite a big deal because you spend the whole of the summer in your flip flops and your arches aren't quite as good as they should be so everything just collapses.
Then you take to doing a bit of high impact work because you just want something that is sort of straight in there and you want to get the job done so perhaps you don't warm up properly.
Joe Wicks is fantastic and so enthusiastic and he is so wonderful but I called the injuries after him because if you're doing one of his sessions and perhaps you're putting the same amount of effort into it as someone else but not necessarily getting the same injuries because we're all built differently so therefore someone who is perhaps wearing a good trainer will benefit more, it's really important to start from the bottom because that's where the impact is."
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Jenny has now given us her advice on how people can prepare and make sure they're ready to take on exercise:
- Do something you really want to do
- Make you sure have the right footwear for the exercise you are planning to do
- Get the right equipment before you do anything
- Be honest with yourself - if you're not really fit don't push yourself too hard
- Get yourself checked out if you feel injured
- Preparation, preparation, preparation
She says that if you love something you shouldn't ever feel you have to give it up, there's always ways to adapt, you just need to have understanding of your body and know what your limits are.
Jenny also posts regular blogs with advice and tips on www.sarumphysio.co.uk.