Jessica 'It's Got to be Gold' Ennis

• Friday, 30 July 2010 00:00

With the European Championships finally underway it would take an extraordinary pessimist to bet against The diminutive British women's  captain, (and quite possibly the prettiest ever BBC sports personality of the year) Jessica Ennis from strolling away with both the gold medal and a new world record at this month's 2012 warm-up, the European Championships. 

Although her early athletics career showed very positive signs with bronze medals at both the 2006 & 2007 Commonwealth & European games, a stress fracture in her right foot prevented our most accomplished female athlete since Denise Lewis from popping over to Beijing to snatch Olympic gold.

It's a standing joke, among the wider Ennis family, that Jessica ever made it into athletics at all, because although her nippy speed and gutsy 'go get' nature were never in doubt, she was by all accounts Sheffield's most accident-prone child.

Fortunately Psychology student Jessica refused to feel sorry for herself and in the space of the year was able to turn Olympic disappointment into both World Indoor Gold (penthalon)and better still a World Championship (heptathalon) gold.

Already lined up as our best bet for 2012 gold, the tight-knit team at 6 Physio applaud Jessica for her sheer mental strength whilst encouraging her to maintain a strong exercise regime to minimize her chances of a future stress fracture.

Justin's back in the race for the Claret Jug

• Wednesday, 14 July 2010 18:38

Once again, Justin Rose, England’s ‘nearly man’ of golf, will go into this week’s  Open at St Andrews with a nation’s hopes perched anxiously on his shoulders.  England will be searching for even the smallest sign of some home-grown talent (OK he was born in South Africa) punching above his/her weight on the world sports stage.

Whilst the smart money might be on one of the Spaniards (Jose Manuel Lara and Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano) mopping up this Sunday (well let’s face it their countrymen seem to have won everything else!), there a niggling suspicion that, with two impressive wins on the American tour in the last few months, this might be the time for Justin to be remembered as a little more than the seventeen year old rookie who slid in a gargantuan putt for a share of 4th place (as an amateur) at the 1998 Open.

Of course Justin will have to watch his back, not because he’ll be sharing the tee for at least the first two days with all time great and bed-hopping legend Tiger Woods, but because Rose’s drive for golfing immortality has so often been hampered by a infuriatingly temperamental back that has plagued his push for Majors honours.

Rose, once renowned for his very laid back physical regime, has been forced to add regular physiotherapy and gym workouts to his weekly fitness routine on account of a back catalogue of missing key events, the last being the 2009 BMW PGA (Europe’s beacon tour event) where his back went into spasms as he put on his golf shoes.

Although golf is one of those sports where the old goats can still beat the younger kids, Justin is very aware that there might not be too many more chances to help himself to the claret jug.

At 6 Physio we applaud Justin for his new 'treat not cure' approach to his ever so slightly dodgy’ back, a philosophy that we also hold dear.

Beware the Welsh Wizard with the Painful Pelvis

• Thursday, 08 July 2010 12:12

With Britain’s World Cup footy and Wimbledon plans not going quite the way some tabloids might have suggested, our island’s incorrigibly upbeat sports enthusiasts have once again turned their attention across the channel where Team Sky are sponsoring an audacious bid to produce the first British winner of the celebrated Tour de France.

With 29yr old Bradley Wiggins coming within the width of a bicycle clip of the final medals podium in 2009 to equal our nation’s best ever 4th finish, it was hoped that our island’s second best cyclist (there’s only one Chris Hoy) ably assisted by the best support team Murdochs’s millions could buy, would ease through the gears in 2010 and turn yet another Great British near miss into something a little more memorable (dare we say metallic!).

Unfortunately the foreign-sponsored gremlins were once again at work with the
rain-soaked roads between Brussels and Spa accounting for not only London-born Wiggins but the ever-green Lance Armstrong and last year’s winner Alberto Contador.

Yet for every unmitigated sporting setback there’s always a small ray of hope which this year comes in the shape of 23yr old Welsh Wizard, Geraint Thomas, whose barnstorming run during the third stage has not only placed him in second place overall but also led to him putting on the fabled white jersey worn by the tour’s best young rider.

No stranger to success with two senior world titles, an Olympic gold and a prominent role in Great Britain’s team pursuit world record, he is the very same rider, who back in 2005 ruptured a spleen, before going on to break his pelvis in early 2009 courtesy of a 20ft fall during a time trial.  Unfazed Geraint picked himself off the ground before going on to win the men’s individual pursuit title some six months later.

At 6 Physio we have always retained a healthy, upbeat attitude when it comes to the human body’s uncanny capacity to come back from even the most severe physical setback and even though few of us possess the same bloody-minded grit as Geraint Thomas, we nevertheless remain confident that the right physiotherapy programme can ease even the most excruciating pelvic pain.

Once Again England Is Robbed of Its Most Celebrated Playmaker

• Thursday, 24 June 2010 16:00