Star Physio and WASO
Star Physio are proud to be the official physiotherapy partners of the Western Australian Symphony Orchestra (WASO). We work closely with the musicians and orchestra support staff in prevention and management of injuries.
Injuries in musicians
Professional musicians work long hours in a stressful environment. They perform highly repetitive tasks such as bowing a violin or cello. They are susceptible to the same sort of injuries that our endurance athletes get – overuse injuries. These commonly manifest as tendinopathies or tendinitis, or repetitive strain RSI type or pain from fatigue of muscles leading to neck pain, shoulder pain and back pain to name but a few.
Treatment and injury prevention in musicians
As such, we treat our musicians the same way we do our endurance athletes, with ergonomic and playing position advice, soft tissue and massage therapy to ease fatigued and sore muscles, and conditioning programs and strength work to make their bodies’ resilient to fatigue and injury.
One of Star Physio’s experts, Alex Chia, is an experienced Sports Physiotherapist as well as a high level musician himself. Alex leads the Star Team in looking after WASO and has developed a specific whole body exercise program for musicians. Follow the link below to learn a fantastic routine that should be performed 2-3x/week, starting with comfortable weights then building over time to the maximum weight possible. Only with these heavier weights will you get the full benefits of injury resilience and fatigue resistance.
Injury prevention evidence
High level evidence shows us that this sort of strength work can reduce your risk of overuse injuries by 50%! Unfortunately, exercises such as yoga and Pilates seldom have enough specific load and resistance to develop this injury resilience, contrary to popular belief!
Don’t put up with pain!
If you are a musician, or any other sort of athlete, who is suffering from pain or injury, get in touch with Star Physio. Musicians in particular will benefit from the musical expertise of Alex Chia and also Ruth Chang, another of our senior physiotherapists who is also an accomplished musician.
https://starphysiowa.com.au/free-advice-2/exercisewithcues/
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