Drinks and canapés will be served during the evening.

RSVP: Friday 13^th February. Contact reception:
reception@restorephysio.com.au
Ph 9855 1122

RSVP ONLINE

To reward our loyal customers and celebrate Restore Physiotherapy and Pilates providing excellent service to the Kew community for the past 10 years, we are offering a discount on our group Pilates.

For the month of February, customers who purchase a 10 pack of Pilates sessions, will only pay $400. This is a saving of $15 per session over the usual sessional rate.

Ask reception for more details.

Restore Physiotherapy & Pilates opened its doors at the High Street Kew address in January 2005.

It was established by Stuart McKenzie and Mary Di Iorio, musculoskeletal physiotherapists who were independently working in North Balwyn. They recognised a need for high quality, evidence based physiotherapy services in Kew. Restore was the first practice to introduce the health benefits of Pilates to Kew. The Restore team grew and Joel Ames, a long serving employee, became a partner in the business.

We have had the privilege of meeting and providing health solutions to over 6,000 clients, many of whom have been part of the Restore family for 10 years. Our clients have become valued members of the Restore community and we are honoured to have experienced the good and hard times with them over that 10 year period. There has been many weddings, births, countless overseas trips, surgeries and sadly, a few deaths which we have shared in.

Our incredible staff has been instrumental to the formation and growth of Restore. Their high quality skills as well as their care and compassion has enabled Restore Physiotherapy and Pilates to be considered leaders in the delivery of Physiotherapy and Pilates services. Physiotherapy staff are strongly encouraged to commit to further study and many have completed Masters degrees in Sports Physiotherapy, Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy, Women’s and Men’s Health Physiotherapy and Public Health. The benefits of further study and knowledge then get passed on to other staff and of course our clients. Our staff has been involved in teaching at Post Graduate and Undergraduate level, providing physiotherapy services to underprivileged communities overseas and providers of physiotherapy to St. Kilda, Richmond and Melbourne AFL football clubs.

Our competent and caring reception staff are the backbone of the practice and their hard work and dedication ensures the smooth running of day to day operations. They have also been known to go above and beyond the call of duty by driving clients home, cooking some meals for them and even providing technical support for their computer issues! This year we farewell Suellen Roberts, our first employee. Suellen was instrumental in the development of the caring culture at Restore. We thank her for her amazing contribution and wish her well for her future endeavours.

Joel, Stuart and Mary would like to thank all our clients and staff at Restore Physiotherapy and Pilates for their support over the last 10 years and for making it such a wonderful family! We look forward to many more years of service.

Zee is a GP working at South Yarra Medical and Olympic Park Sports Medicine Clinic. Zee has also worked as the club doctor at Melbourne Football Club in the AFL for the past three seasons.

Zee received his medical degree from Monash University in 2003 and has also completed a Masters degree in Public Health and Tropical Medicine. He is also in the process of completing the Sports Physician training program.

Zee’s two passions are sports medicine and nutrition. He is a strong believer in using exercise and sport to promote health and well being, and prevent disease and morbidity.

However, it is nutrition where Zee has gained most notoriety. He believes appropriate nutrition, exercise, stress management and sleep is paramount in the prevention and treatment of most chronic diseases including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, hypertriglyceridemia, fatty liver, polycystic ovarian syndrome, gastro oesophageal reflux and irritable bowel syndrome.

He has successfully assisted numerous patients lose weight and maintain their weight loss with a well formulated personalised nutrition plan. Zee has also given numerous public lectures exploring these themes and has appeared in various forms of media discussing this subject. He is also very experienced in using low carbohydrate high fat and ketogenic diets for exercise performance particularly endurance athletes. A strategy he has introduced to the Melbourne Football Club over the 2015 pre season.

In this quarterly newsletter we will keep you updated with the latest happenings at Restore Physiotherapy and Pilates. You can read about the latest cutting edge information regarding your health and well-being.

What are the pelvic floor muscles? This month Tamara Wraith, Restore’s highly qualified and experienced Women’s and Men’s Health Physiotherapist, provides information about these important muscles and their role in everyday life.

Do you or your children play competitive sport? Are they adequately protecting themselves from injury by completing a proper warm up? Joel Ames, co-director at Restore and physiotherapist at Melbourne Football Club in the AFL, provides information regarding the key features of a warm up and what the latest research tells us your child should be doing pre-game, training or during competition.

Each issue we will also give you some background on members of our friendly, passionate and professional Restore Physiotherapy team.

You may have noticed a change at Restore over the past few months as our rebranding nears completion. Our amazing new blue window signage spanning the entire street frontage of 260 High Street Kew has been prominent since early in the year. We also have a stronger online presence through the creation of our new website (link), allowing you to access all the information you need about our team and the services provided at Restore.

Hope you enjoy this newsletter and remember at Restore Physiotherapy and Clinical Pilates “YOUR WELL-BEING is OUR PRIORITY”.

Q: What is a firm foundation for upper limbs, lower limbs and trunk control?

A: Core stability!

Yes we have all heard the term and it is exchanged over cups of coffee, before a gym session or whilst walking around the golf course: “I am working on my core…”

To work on your core really means co-activating or engaging the transversus abdominus muscle (deepest abdominal muscle which acts like a corset) and the levator ani muscles. What and where are the levator ani muscles? They are your pelvic floor muscles – they form a floor to your bony pelvis and are vital for supporting abdominal organs in men and women, young and old.

So your pelvis is the powerhouse for core strength. Your pelvis is the foundation stone for weight bearing lifestyles.

• Is your pelvic floor muscle engaged?
• Have you experienced any signs of weakness?
• Bladder control or bowel control issues?
• Prolapse symptoms, prostate symptoms or pelvic pain of any sort?

If so, speak to your physiotherapist, GP or specialist and make sure you optimise your pelvic floor control and build a firmer foundation. Improve your body mass index to not overload the pelvic floor.

Try completing the following male/female questionnaires to ascertain if you are putting your Pelvic Floor First. Visit www.pelvicfloorfirst.com.au or ask at the Restore reception for a copy of this questionnaire.

Tamara Wraith

Tamara Wraith is our experienced Women’s and Men’s Health Physiotherapist who joined the Restore team two years ago. Tamara has focused on clinical excellence and compassion as a pelvic floor physiotherapist for 15 years and has tutored at Melbourne University on the Post Graduate course since 2010. Tamara as well as working in many private clinics, has been a Senior Physiotherapist at many of Melbourne’s leading hospital specialising in obstetrics and gynaecology, including Mercy Hospital for Women and Francis Perry House. Tamara recently travelled with an Aus Aid Urology Team coordinated by the College of Surgeons to Solomon Islands to help establish a Continence Clinic there – a project she is thrilled to have an ongoing involvement with.

A warm up is defined as a period of preparatory exercise in order to enhance subsequent competition or training performance.

But what is the most appropriate form of warm up and is the traditional version of a warm up the most appropriate in enhancing performance and preventing injury?

We all know that a warm up prior to sporting activity is important, but why? What are the benefits? The purpose of a warm up is increase blood flow to the periphery, increase muscle temperature, increase muscle and tendon suppleness and enhance co-ordinated movement.

Warm ups have traditionally consisted of aerobic exercise, followed by stretching and then by sport specific activity. Warm ups incorporating these three components are supported by numerous authors in the literature. However, much conjecture exists about the specifics within these three categories.

The most controversy exists as to whether static or dynamic stretching should be included. Static stretching involves passively elongating a muscle to the end of its range then holding (usually at the point of discomfort) for a period of time.Dynamic stretching involves whole body movements and actively and rhythmically contracting a muscle group through part of its range of movement. Examples of dynamic stretches include; hopping, jumping, leg and arm swings, sidestepping, high knees, leg kickbacks and walk lunge. Recent evidence has shown that dynamic stretching is superior to static stretching in improving performance. In fact some evidence points to static stretching having a negative impact on performance. Static stretching has shown to decrease strength, jump height, reaction time and balance. Pre exercise static stretching has also been shown to have no benefit in reducing injury risk. In contrast dynamic stretching often incorporated into a sport specific warm up has shown to improve concentric strength, agility, speed, agility and jump height.

The length of a warm up is also another area in which opinions vary widely. Specific time frames are difficult to provide because they are influenced by the sport undertaken, level of competition and age of the participants. Evidence has shown that warm ups focusing on an increase in body temperature have been shown to be more effective in reducing injury. However, fatigue is also a positive predictor for injury. So as general rule, the length of the warm up should be enough to achieve optimal levels of body temperature but not too long to cause fatigue.

The sport specific activity included within a warm up should involve similar body parts to those used within the sport. Therefore, coaches and trainers should analyse key skills and tasks performed during the sport and incorporate similar movements into the warm up.

Using the above principles a general warm up for sporting activity should include:

1. A period of aerobic exercise to increase body temperature. E.g.: gentle shuttle runs, laps of Netball court etc
2. A period of sport-specific dynamic stretching to stretch the muscles used in the subsequent performance. E.g. high knees, sidestepping, leg kickbacks, leg and arm swings, walk lunges, jumping and skipping.
3. Sport specific movements similar to those used in the sport. E.g.: passing drills, shooting drills, kicking drills etc.

A full list of references for this article is available on request.

Joel Ames is a musculoskeletal physiotherapist and director at Restore Physiotherapy and Clinical Pilates in Kew. He is also a full time physiotherapist at Melbourne Football Club in the AFL.