Do you have pain deep in your buttock muscle over your sitting bone? Insertional hamstring tendinopathy is a very medical sounding term for a condition that is very often misdiagnosed. The hamstring muscle is the huge group of 3 muscles that run up the back of the leg. They attach around the knee at the lower end and into the sitting bone at the top of the leg. The tendon is what attaches the muscle to the bone. It can sometimes rub on the sitting bone (ischial tuberosity) becoming irritated and sore. The pain is usually around the sitting bone and often refers down the back of the leg. Sitting can be a problem, especially on hard chairs. Walking up hills and stairs is also painful. People will often have to stop running or exercising due to the pain.

 The Achilles tendon is the thick band of tissue that joins the lower part of the calf (the muscles at the back of the lower leg) to the heel. These muscles play an essential role in pushing off the ground when walking and running but also in absorbing forces as you land. Sudden increases in the amount of exercise you are doing, especially where there are larger forces involved, for example, running further, running uphill, playing more tennis etc, can often result in the break down of the Achilles tendon. This results in Achilles Tendinopathy.

 In the past we have been taught many different ways to help pain caused by an injury, maybe ice, rest, pain killers, stretching, to name a few. But how the brain detects what is happening in the body and as a result spits out a “I am hurting” message is becoming more and more realised.

In a recent study into tendon injuries, it has been shown that you can change the part of the brain that feels sensation by doing different types of exercises.

The rotator cuff are a group of four small muscles that wrap around the shoulder joint, ensuring that the ball of the arm bone, the humerus, stays central in the joint, the glenoid. The shoulder joint has to move through a huge range of movement to allow us to place our hand wherever we need to. The joint relies on these rotator cuff muscles to keep the ball in the shoulder socket while we do these movements.