If you thought you had to stretch before and after exercise to prevent injury, then you wouldn’t be alone.
But this is just one of a number of common practices that actually don’t do anything beneficial for your health.
The top five physiotherapy myths have been publicly busted by the world’s largest physiotherapy clinical research website, PEDro (Physiotherapy Evidence Database).
Based at the George Institute for Global Health in Sydney, researchers have studied reports of more than 28,000 guidelines, trials and review.
And surprisingly what are commonly known as effective practises, are actually misconceptions and have no hard evidence to back them up.
TOP 5 PHYSIOTHERAPY MYTHS BUSTED
1. The type of mattress you sleep on prevents back pain
‘We couldn’t find any well conducted trials to evaluate this,’ said Anne Moseley from PEDro
2. Stretching prevents injury and muscle soreness in recreational runners
‘Stretching before and after a run makes no difference to injuries and muscle soreness’
3. You should wear a neck brace if you have a whiplash neck injury
‘If there is no fracture and just whiplash, research has found that wearing a brace is detrimental’
4. Ultrasound for the recovery of ankle sprains
5. An incentive spirometer – a device which patients use to help them take deep breaths to prevent complications during upper abdominal surgery or cardiac surgery
‘Unnecessary treatments which can cost a considerable amount’
Number one on the top list of physiotherapy myths is ‘the type of mattress you sleep on prevents back pain’.
Well sorry to all those people who went out and bought an expensive mattress to ease their aching backs, but it’s most likely not helping.
Number two on the list is ‘stretching prevents injury and muscle soreness in recreational runners’.
‘Really well conducted research shows stretching before and after a run makes no difference to injuries and muscle soreness.’
‘There is high quality research that there are other things you can do – agility training, co-ordination training, active warm ups, exercise related to the sport.
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