Video Guides

Fast relief for back pain

To prevent your health from deteriorating, research has revealed that for every 30-60 minutes of sitting, you must move for 3 minutes! Here is a quick 3 minute movement break you can easily do at your desk, in your office or anywhere in the home. This low impact routine is safe for dodgy knees and pelvic floors! Modify the depth of your squats and lunges as needed.

Our body has a primary muscle for respiration, the diaphragm, not the belly! Learn how to breathe into the diaphragm using a theraband or pair of tights!

Do you wake up feeling stiff and sore? If so, here are some gentle stretches to do in bed before getting up. Great if you have low back or joint pain.

The floor is possibly the best piece of exercise equipment you’re not using.

A full body routine designed to help with alignment, connection with your pelvic floor, breath awareness, linking the pelvic floor with the breath, and both pelvic floor strengthening and releasing exercises.

If this doesn’t leave you with a little fire in your belly, I’ll eat my mat.

Exercise to help lengthen and strengthen your shoulders

This is a great video to watch as we start spending more time outside - walking, running and maybe even trampolining!

Here are 3 exercise for all runners and walkers to help build strong hips and knees

What stops us from committing to exercise. How setting goals can really help our motivation.

Low back or pelvic pain? Surprisingly headaches can even benefit from releasing the low back due to the posterior myofascial chain connecting you top to toe!

If you are suffering with allergies 💧, sinus congestion 👃 and blocked ears 👂, here are some great self-drainage techniques.

Gathered here for the first time - Emma’s series of 24 movements to strengthen the core

It is crucial that we have excellent circulation and drainage throughout the body, in our arteries, veins, lymphatics and around and within our organs for our immune system to work at its optimal best.

As the days start to shorten and we begin to spend more time indoors curled up on the sofa with family, friends, or with a book, phone or TV to entertain us, it is still possible to strengthen and mobilise our bodies.

Swapping the sofa or chair for the floor is a simple solution for adding more movement to your day.

Getting calf cramps, plantar fasciitis or stiff ankles? Here's a short set of exercises to do daily, and especially before bed. Stretching the calves, mobilising the ankles, and myofascial release of the plantar fascia can help with running, squatting, jumping, balancing and help stop cramps at night. Hold each stretch for 10 seconds and repeat 5 times. Use the back of a chair if you need help with balance.

If when you inhale you suck in your tummy and raise your shoulders, you are increasing the downward pressure in your pelvis (your guts have got to go somewhere right!?) which pushes down on the pelvic floor. Also, you will be carrying a lot of tension in your neck and shoulders.

If you are breathing with your belly hanging out, your transverse abdominal muscles are not engaged and this also sends pressure downwards. So learn to breath with your lower ribs, feeling a 360 degree expansion round your lower ribs as you inhale, keep your belly still and your shoulders down.

Try using a theraband round your lower ribs to help you direct the expansion in your chest to the right area.

Top tip: stop sitting on your tail bone! If you sit with your pelvis tucked under you, you are sitting on your tail bone, effectively pushing it forwards. Your pelvic floor runs from tail bone to pubis (front of the pelvis), so the further in your tail bone goes, the weaker and tighter (not in a good way right!) your pelvic floor becomes. Think strong trampoline to weak hammock effect. The more hammock like your pelvic floor becomes, the more pressure it is under, hence leakage on strain or impact. SO, get off your tail bone, rock your pelvis forwards, stick your butt out and sit up on your sit bones or BEST OF ALL, SIT LESS, MUCH LESS! No amount of Kegel's are going to help your pelvic floor until you address (amongst other things!) the position of your pelvis. Message me if your pelvic floor needs a little TLC.

Love this exercise to really stretch and strengthen the posterior muscle chains of the body, especially the hamstrings and glutes, and challenge the core. Great to help untuck the pelvis after all that sitting.

Try it at home standing on the floor and use a broomstick, keep your knee softened in the leg you are standing on. To up the challenge, stand on a pillow.

Which is better for you, walking or running on a treadmill or going outside?  Here are my thoughts on the pros and cons of each, discussing the risks of treadmill exercise and the treadmill desk. Have a listen to find out why.  Excuse the breathy chat, snotty nose and wild hair - i am having a great walk in the cold and wind!

Emma Wightman introduces herself and answers the top 5 questions asked to an Osteopath: What is Osteopathy? What and who do you treat? Will you click my back? How often will I need to come? Is it safe?

I've just done this lovely lazy floor-based stretching routine to bring a little more oxygen to my tired muscles and brain.

You can do this little and often, or repeat the reps as many times as you like. Repeat both sides and exhale as you move.

Super safe, low impact and great if you're tired or have chronic low back pain.

KNEE HUGS * LOW BACK CIRCLES * SINGLE KNEEE HUG * GLUTE STRETCH/FIGURE OF 4 * CHEST OPENING * CLOCKS * CHILDS POSE

Our Sports Osteo, @joebatey, demonstrates the Spider-man exercise to help with shoulder stability issues. Its a great warm up for the rotator cuff muscles before a workout too.

If your shoulders are feeling a bit hunched or rounded and you're getting some pain in the shoulders or betweeen the shoulder blades, this is a great stretch for you.

Here's a short video explaining how by adjusting your shoulders can help your tennis elbow / lateral epicondylitis

Hunched, tight rounded shoulders? This is a lovely short series of stretches to get you out of the slumped desk bound position.

This is a great exercise to free the nerve from whatever is compressing it, like a bulging disc or piriformis syndrome.

By lifting your head and leg at the same time and then lowering head and leg you are creating a tension through the length of the nerve and then gliding it up and down.

I forgot to mention in the video to flex the foot as you lift the leg, this increases the tension in the nerve. Repeat 10-15 times everyday.

If you feel more than mild discomfort or tingling as you do this exercise, the compression on the nerve is too much, and this isn't the exercise for you just yet.

If you're getting long-term, chronic low back pain, perhaps from a disc bulge, over-strain or degenerative changes, try these exercises. They are designed to both stretch and strengthen the low back, encouraging better mobility and stability.

With the first 5 strengthening exercises, try 3 sets of 6 repetitions. As you feel stronger and more confident with the moves, increase the reps up to 10. With the remaining stretching exercises, hold each stretch for a slow count of 10, and repeat 4 times on each side.

I have included some progressions for some of the exercises for you to try in accordance with your pain levels. If anything causes more than moderate discomfort, don't continue with that exercise, and try the next one.

If you are suffering with sciatica you can add in the Sciatic nerve flossing exercise in my previous video.

Most of these exercises are able to be moderated, so let me know if you need something more challenging or if they are too strong for you at the moment.

This routine should take you about 20-25 minutes. Make sure each exercise is done in a very slow and controlled way. The slower you go, the more precise and effective you will be, and the more benefit you will get :-)

As well as walking or swimming for 30 minutes per day, be sure to do these exercises daily too. Whatever you do, movement is better than rest, so keep moving through a variety of positions and movements!

Squatting is not easy if you haven't done it since you were a toddler, and three areas can tighten up and prevent a deep, comfortable squat. This 5 minute routine mobilises these key areas, the ankle, the hips and the low back. Run through this prep to squat routine, holding each stretch for 30 seconds and repeating 2 to 3 times on each side to really improve your squat-ability.

If you've tried all the exercises to prepare your body to squat from my last video, and you are still getting tight or painful hips, knees or ankles, here are some simple ways of adapting the squat with just a towel and door.

Try reducing chair sitting and try some floor sitting. Here are 3 positions you can try out. Keep cycling between them to stay comfy and introduce some movement to your sitting. Great for the hamstrings and hip flexors that get short and weak with too much chair time.

A short set of exercises to help with stiff ankles, tight calves and plantar fasciitis. Stretching the feet and calves, mobilising the ankle and using a massage ball to roll out the calf and plantar fascia.

Watch this quick clip and check your driving position to make sure you avoid back, neck and shoulder ache.

Do these stretching and mobilising exercises regularly in the car to relieve tension and stimulate blood flow.

This is one of my favourite exercises as it ticks a lot of boxes all in one!.It's great for working the whole rotator cuff and upper back for shoulder strength and stability, and by adding in the lunge, you connect up through the muscle chains bringing in core, glutes and thigh muscles.

Remember to have your arms slightly out in front of you, so your hands are always in sight and always start with the arms turned in, in internal rotation.

Keep your head up as you lunge forward and as you raise your arms, don't arch the spine backwards.

This is great for rotator cuff rehab, postural correction for rounded shoulders and for general strength and stability.

Vary your weights and resistance band to suit your strength and fitness.

Try 3 sets of 6 to 10 repetitions.

A great routine for building strength and stability in the rotator cuff, as well as correcting rounded shoulder posture.

Shoulder rolls

Bicep curls

W to Y

W to Y with lunge

Shoulder press with step and spine rotation

Repeat each exercise 10 times and repeat the routine 3 times.

Repeat the routine 4 times and alternate sides. Relax, stretch, breath. Enjoy!

Looking for a total body stretch all in one!? Try the Bretzel, it's strong.

Feel it in your glutes, quads, psoas, sacroiliacs and thoracic spine.

Exhale as you roll backwards and inhale to roll forwards to get the ribs stretching too.

If you're suffering with allergies, sinus congestion and blocked ears, here are some great self-drainage techniques.

Repeat every exercise 6 times, but AVOID the ear pumps if there is any chance of an ear infection.

Add in some deep breathing and neck stretching to improve the drainage into the chest.

This is also safe and effective to do on young children.

I really love these shoulder opening exercises.

By connecting upper body movement with lower body movement this becomes a far more relevant exercise to our daily lives, as we rarely use any part of the body in isolation.

It works the body in all its axis of movement, side to side (frontal), front to back (sagittal) and rotational (transverse)..And it connects up through the myofascial slings of the body.

These stretches are dynamic, functional and great for your balance too.

Do them daily! Try 3 sets of 6-8 repetitions of each movement.

If you have sprained your ankle or need to give it some extra support, here is a great taping technique, using the figure of 8 method.

Dont forget to hold the foot up and turned out while you are taping, and apply about a 75% stretch to the tape. Always ensure there is no stretch at the anchor points, ie. dont apply any stretch at the begining and end of the tape.

You can leave the tape on 4-5 days, but if its uncomfortable or getting itchy, carefully remove it.

Talk given to the Osteopath volunteers prior to thier humanitarian trip in Kenya Nov 2017, on 'what is FGM' and how can we help as Osteopaths.

Safe and effective routine, taking the spine through all its ranges of movement, to stretch and mobilise the back. Ideal for stiffness, chronic pain and in pregnancy.

A great mobilising routine for when youre confined to a tight spot on an airplane.

Hip impingement exercise using a band to distract and open the joint.

This is the Core Advent Series that went out in daily in December 2020, now clipped together and all in one place. I cover every aspect of building a strong resilient core, from whole body alignment, classic abdominal, glute and spinal strengthening exercises, to movements you can easily incorporate into your daily life. You will be surprised at how easy it can be to exercise your core without long workouts, special kit, setting time aside or even putting your trainers on!