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Living With Type 2 Diabetes

I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes five years ago, and I've had to make considerable changes to my lifestyle to maintain my health since I was diagnosed. I started this blog to share my experience of coming to terms with having type 2 diabetes and what I've learned on my personal journey. I share details of the lifestyle changes I've made, including giving up smoking and eating more wholefoods, and my personal experience of using alternative treatments, such as acupuncture and herbal medicine. I also post about new treatments that are becoming available for type 2 diabetes. I hope you find my blog useful and informative.

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Living With Type 2 Diabetes

Stretching Each Day Keeps the Physio Away

by Regina Perry

Even though injury prevention is something that should be encouraged, the occasional bump, sprain or back pain is inevitable. This is where being part of a reliable medical centre will come in handy. If it's possible that you'll need quick and easy access to physiotherapy or chiropractor from time to time, and so public care packages may not be suitable if you're trying to fight competitively. This guide will offer practical advice to help you stay injury free and reduce the likelihood of having to visit your GP.

Health Centre at Home

If you're struggling to see a physiotherapist in time, there are a free things you can do to help alleviate muscular pains and aches. Myofascial release is where you massage the tissue deeply to remove tension. Without a physiotherapist this can be done with a foam roller, at a much cheaper price and on a daily basis. It's very simple and requires you to just roll various parts of your body over a foam tube with a plastic center. Some of these have rubber teeth or raises areas that mimic fingers and help to pinpoint specific areas of the muscle. Some of the common areas to work are the legs. This can be done my rolling your leg up and down the tube using your bodyweight to add pressure.

Stretch to Flex

Frequent stretching will also help to prevent injury. Stretching should be done after each workout in order to lengthen the muscles and give them a greater range of movement. By holding stretches for 30 seconds in a static stretch, you can temporarily increase the muscle fibre length. This is important in exercises like Muay Thai because frequent explosive kicks and strikes can lead to over extension and torn ligaments.

Adding some mobility movement into your workout at the beginning and end can also help with injury prevention. This consists of performing dynamic stretches and exercises, with the intent of increasing the range of movement with each rep. Things such as squats and lunges are perfect for this and also help to open up and stretch the hip flexors. 

Warm Up 

Before any sort of stretching or mobility try to warm up. Aerobikes and rowers are great for this because they are low impact machines. By getting the heart pumping you can distribute both heat and oxygen to the muscles and lubricate the joints with synovial fluid. However, even if you do follow all of these tips you may still find yourself in pain or injured. If this is the case go to your local medical centre straight away; by treating problems as they arise, you can stop them from getting worse.

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