Physiotherapists in Kidlington treat many different conditions including the issues profiled below.

Muscle Fibre Types

Muscle has three main fibre types which are specialised for different functional abilities. Type 1 muscle fibres, also known as slow twitch fibres, have a good capillary supply and use a mostly aerobic energy system. Type 2 fibres use a non-aerobic energy system more typically and in general the proportion of Type 1 to Type 2 fibres is fixed genetically in an individual. Muscle cells don.t turn over like many other body cells, the muscle continues for the life of the person. Muscles get larger and stronger by the individual muscle cells gaining mass and the number of muscle cells does not change.

Muscles are very adaptive tissues and can respond to altered work demands very much more quickly than other tissues, enabling us to build up the ability to do something new in a short time. The way the muscles are exercised has strong effects on the way muscles adapt to the new stresses. If endurance training is performed, with lower weights and higher repetitions, the largest changes are in the Type 1 slow twitch fibres which exhibit increases in their blood supply and in the enzyme systems which deliver energy. This allows these muscle fibres to contract for longer periods without tiring.

Pain Behaviours

When we hurt ourselves it is usual for us to give some indication of the fact that we are injured and these behaviours we exhibit are caused pain behaviours. Typical pain behaviours are non-verbal such as groaning or moaning, grimacing, holding the painful part, lying down, seeking a space away from people or taking painkillers. These behaviours are normal and are a form of communication, letting other people know we have a problem so that they can help us if we require some assistance to manage our injury. These behaviours allow others to assist us more quickly than if we had to think about it and ask them, which would be difficult immediately after a painful injury.

However, such pain behaviours can become chronic, a sort of ingrained habit, and people may use them to communicate daily to people around them about how they are doing that day. This type of communication, being non-verbal, can be misconstrued as it is not clear what is being communicated, leading to incorrect guesses and unwanted actions. Non-assertive communication can be very irritating for those around the person as it is never clear what they want and when something is done it is wrong.