Sharp Physiotherapy

Sharp Physiotherapy ▪️Specialist Sport & Musculoskeletal Injury Clinic.
📍 Bawtry 📍 Lincoln📍 Newark

Sharp Physiotherapy Doncaster helps adults aged 30–60 recover from pain, injury, and surgery so they can stay active and move with confidence. We treat all areas of the body including back, neck, shoulder, hip & groin, knee, foot, and ankle pain. Our services include physiotherapy, sports injury rehab, physio-led gym access, shockwave therapy, manual therapy, and post-surgery rehabilitation. Conve

niently based in Bawtry with free parking and HCPC-registered clinicians, we're trusted by patients across Doncaster.

01/06/2026

Stretching your neck but the pain keeps coming back?

There's one area that's frequently overlooked, yet it's often the real source of the problem.

Facet joints.

These are small paired joints at the back of each spinal segment, and they're essential for smooth neck movement: turning, bending, and looking up.

When they're moving well, your neck feels free and comfortable.

The problem is how we use our necks every day.

Long hours on phones, laptops, driving, or even cooking encourage a forward head position.

Over time, this posture compresses the facet joints and reduces their ability to glide properly.

They become stiff, irritated, and sometimes inflamed.

The muscles around them then tighten up to protect the area, and that's when the symptoms kick in.

Common signs include:

- A dull ache at the base of the neck
- Pain spreading into the shoulders or upper back
- Sharp discomfort when turning your head
- Stiffness first thing in the morning or after periods of sitting

This isn't purely a muscle problem.

Lasting relief often comes from restoring movement to the joints themselves, not simply stretching the muscles around them.

That's where hands-on joint techniques, guided mobility, and controlled movement come in.

Muscles protect joints. But when joints stop moving properly, muscles are forced to overwork, and pain follows.

If your neck pain keeps returning, it may be time to look beyond posture and tension.

Start with the joints.

The Sharp Physio Team

01/06/2026

Can I bench press with shoulder pain?

Bench press and shoulder pain associated with gym-based training is something we see in clinical practice all the time.

In many cases, the issue is not the exercise itself, but an underlying factor that results in certain movements becoming symptomatic or poorly tolerated.

In the short term, exercises that are aggravating symptoms may need to be modified, adjusted, or temporarily avoided to allow pain and irritation to settle before gradually being reintroduced.

Shoulder pain can develop for a number of reasons, including previous injury history, acute overload or trauma, strength or movement imbalances, reduced control around the shoulder complex, or training load and recovery factors.

The priority is obtaining a thorough assessment to identify the underlying cause of symptoms and establish an appropriate management plan.

Once the root cause has been identified, rehabilitation can combine hands-on treatment to help reduce symptoms alongside progressive gym-based rehabilitation aimed at improving strength, capacity, and resilience of the shoulder over time.

At Sharp Physio, rehabilitation is tailored to the individual with the aim of returning patients to training safely, confidently, and stronger than before.

The Sharp Physio Team

31/05/2026

Shoulder pain isn't always just about the shoulder itself.

If you get pain reaching overhead, putting on a jacket, or twisting to grab a seatbelt, it's easy to blame a "dodgy rotator cuff" or general wear and tear.

So people rest it. They stop using the arm. They try a few stretches from YouTube. Maybe book a massage... but the relief never seems to last.

Here's what often gets missed... the shoulder doesn't work alone.

It relies on the surrounding muscles for stability, particularly the lats.

When the lats are tight or restricted, they can reduce range of movement, place extra load on the joint, and trigger pain especially with anything overhead.

That's why so many people struggle to improve until these underlying issues are actually addressed.

The Sharp Physio Team

31/05/2026

Is shin pain always “shin splints” ?

When it comes to shin pain, particularly in active individuals and runners, it is often labelled as medial tibial stress syndrome (MTSS) — pain or tenderness along the inner border of the tibia.

This typically sits on a spectrum.

At the lower end, it may represent a mild bone stress response involving the periosteum (the outer layer of bone), which is often manageable with appropriate load modification while maintaining activity.

At the more severe end, shin pain can progress to a bone stress injury or stress fracture of the tibia.

This is an important consideration in runners, particularly where there has been a recent increase in training load or intensity.

These presentations are managed very differently, and in cases where a more significant bone stress injury is suspected, imaging often MRI rather than X-ray may be required to confirm diagnosis and guide management.

Once the severity is understood, rehabilitation can be appropriately structured, which in more significant cases may involve complete load reduction or immobilisation, and in rarer circumstances specialist orthopaedic input.

More commonly, earlier-stage injuries are managed by reducing and controlling load, addressing any contributing biomechanical or strength factors, and then progressively rebuilding capacity under guidance to avoid recurrence.

At Sharp Physio, shin pain is assessed in detail to differentiate between these presentations and ensure management is matched appropriately to the severity and underlying cause.

The Sharp Physio Team

30/05/2026

"It's only when you can't check your blind spot that you realise how much you depend on your neck."

Neck pain rarely hits all at once.

It might start as a bit of stiffness when you wake up, or a dull ache after a long day at your desk.

Easy to ignore, until one day you go to reverse the car, glance over your shoulder… and your neck simply won't turn.

That's usually the moment people know something isn't right.

But here's what often gets missed...

Getting on top of neck pain isn't just about relieving that sharp pinch when you turn your head.

It's about restoring movement in every direction:

🔄 Rotating left and right
⬆️ Looking up and down
↔️ Tilting side to side

Your neck is built to move across three planes, and when even one direction becomes restricted, the others are forced to pick up the slack.

That's when tension creeps in, movement starts to feel stiff and guarded, and the pain just won't go away.

The good news?

With the right hands-on treatment and targeted exercises, full pain-free movement is absolutely achievable.

The Sharp Physio Team

30/05/2026

Why do runners get Achilles pain?

Achilles pain is one of the most common injuries seen in runners and is often related to how much load the tendon is being exposed to over time.

In some cases, it can simply be a matter of doing too much too soon, whether that is an increase in mileage, speed work, hill running, or changes in training frequency before the tendon has adapted to tolerate that level of demand.

There can also be a number of contributing biomechanical factors involved.

The way the foot and ankle move during running can influence how load is transferred through the Achilles tendon, while factors higher up the chain, such as calf strength, hip control, muscle imbalances, or reduced lower limb stability may also alter the forces going through the tendon and increase susceptibility to irritation.

Given the repetitive impact and loading demands involved in running, the Achilles tendon is consistently exposed to high levels of force, which is why it is such a common area for overload-related injuries in runners.

Effective management usually involves understanding why the tendon has become overloaded in the first place, alongside appropriate load management, progressive strengthening, and a gradual return to running.

The Sharp Physio Team

29/05/2026

Does your hip feel like it's constantly catching, pinching, or aching in all the wrong places?

Whether it's a sharp twinge at the front when you squat, a deep ache in your glutes after sitting too long, or a pulling sensation down your thigh, these aren't just random discomforts.

More often than not, it's a sign that your hip joint, that classic ball-and-socket isn't moving the way it should.

When the "ball" becomes compressed or stuck in the "socket," it creates a cycle of irritation and stiffness that no amount of basic stretching seems to shift.

The reason stretching so often falls short is that it doesn't address what's happening inside the joint itself.

For lasting relief, you need to move the joint, not just the muscles around it.

That's why we focus on creating space within the hip through joint mobilisations and distraction techniques, essentially opening things up so the pressure reduces straight away.

Pair that with targeted soft tissue work and a structured rehab plan to keep things stable, and you go from simply "managing" the pain to actually resolving it.

Hip pain isn't something you just have to live with or push through.

If you're ready to move without that constant pinch, we'd love to help you get a clear plan in place.

The Sharp Physio Team

29/05/2026

How to train around an injury without stopping all activity...

When it comes to training around an injury, whether you are training at a high performance level or simply trying to stay active day to day, it is important to identify what you can still safely do rather than stopping everything completely.

In most cases, training does not need to stop entirely.

Instead, it needs to be adapted to avoid aggravating symptoms while still maintaining as much activity as possible.

This may involve modifying or temporarily removing certain movements or loading patterns, adjusting training volume, or incorporating additional rest and recovery days to allow symptoms to settle appropriately in the early stages.

Keeping the body moving within tolerated limits is often a key part of recovery, alongside periods of relative rest where required to reduce irritation and allow healing to progress.

The goal is always to maintain function where possible while also addressing the underlying cause of the injury, rather than simply resting and returning to full activity without a structured plan.

At Sharp Physio, we will always aim to keep you as active as possible throughout your rehabilitation, adapting your training in a way that supports recovery while still allowing you to move, train, and progress safely.

The Sharp Physio Team

28/05/2026

Is pain during rehab normal?

Yes and here's what to do about it.

One of my patients had been doing brilliantly. We'd got her back to the gym, essentially pain-free.

Then she messaged me... pain had spiked to a four or five out of ten. Panic setting in.

Here's what we did:

• Added two extra rest days
• Removed a couple of exercises
• Modified movements to offload the front of the knee

10 days later? Back to pain-free.

The mistake most people make is throwing in the towel the moment pain creeps back in.

They reach for the painkillers, stop their exercises, and before they know it, they're back to square one.

Flare-ups during rehab are part of the process. They don't mean your pain is back. They don't mean you've failed.

They mean your body is adapting.

Stick with the plan. Your physio is there to tell you what's normal, when to back off, and how to adjust. Trust the process.

The Sharp Physio Team

28/05/2026

Struggling with Mid Back Pain?

Mid back pain isn't the same as lower back pain, and it often gets overlooked.

That section of your spine, called the thoracic spine, has a very specific job, it needs to be both strong enough to support you and mobile enough to let you twist and move freely.

Here's what makes the mid back so unique (and why it can hurt):

🔹 The rib connection – Every rib in your body attaches to the thoracic spine. When these joints become stiff, you don't just feel it in your back, it can affect your breathing, your posture, and even the way your shoulders move.

🔹 Rotation central – The thoracic spine is where most of your upper body rotation comes from. When it tightens up, your body will compensate by finding movement elsewhere, usually in the neck, shoulders, or lower back. That compensation can quickly lead to pain.

The key to relieving mid back pain isn't randomly stretching or focusing on the lower back. It's about improving rib mobility, restoring thoracic rotation, and finding the right balance between movement and stability.

If you've been putting up with nagging mid back pain, the right approach can make all the difference.

The Sharp Physio Team

Address

14 The Courtyard
Bawtry
DN106JG

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 8pm
Tuesday 8am - 8pm
Wednesday 8am - 5pm
Thursday 8am - 5pm
Friday 8am - 5pm

Telephone

+441302244093

Website

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