The Physio Formula (2026)

29/03/2025

💪🏻 Strength Training is safer than you think!

💡 Did you know? Strength sports like powerlifting & weightlifting have WAY fewer injuries than soccer, rugby, or even running!

🔹 Injury rates per 1000h of sport: ⚽ Soccer: ~49 🏉 Rugby: ~47 🏃 Running: ~18 💪🏻 Powerlifting: ~4 🏋️‍♂️ Weightlifting: ~3

🚨 As you can see, strength training has one of the lowest injury rates compared to other common sports. Yet, it’s often seen as more dangerous.

🔥 And it’s for EVERYONE: men, women, kids, and older adults alike!

🤯 Beyond safety, the benefits are HUGE: stronger bones, more muscle, better heart health, improved mental well-being, a reduced risk of chronic diseases like diabetes, cancer, and dementia, and much more!

🙌🏻 Strength training isn’t just safe: it’s ESSENTIAL!

💭 Thoughts or questions? Drop them in the COMMENTS below!

– Elisabetta

✅ FOLLOW .physio.formula for more evidence-based insights on Pain, Injury & Rehab!

03/03/2025

🚨 Most athletes expect to return to their pre-injury level within 6 months after ACL reconstruction…

… but the reality is very different.

🔍 Research shows that: ✔️ 81% return to some level of sport ✔️ 65% return to their pre-injury level ❌ Only 55% return to competitive play

😮 Even more surprising? About 25% of athletes suffer a 2nd ACL injury, with the biggest risk factors being: ⚠️ Returning to sport too early (before 9 months) ⚠️ Playing high-risk Level 1 sports (e.g., soccer, basketball, football) ⚠️ Insufficient strength & poor movement mechanics

✅So, to reduce Your Risk: 1️⃣ Wait at least 9 months before returning to sport. 2️⃣ Follow a structured rehab program focused on strength & agility and return to practice & competition GRADUALLY (don’t rush it!!) 3️⃣ Build mental confidence to play without hesitation.

🏁 Bottom line? ACL rehab takes time. Patience + smart training = your best shot at a full comeback.

💭 Have you had ACL surgery? What was your recovery like? Drop a comment below! ⬇️

-Elisabetta

✅ FOLLOW .physio.formula for more evidence-based insights on pain, injury & rehab!

12/02/2025

🤔 What actually is non-specific low back pain?

❌ It definitely does NOT mean “non-existent.” Non-specific low back pain is, in fact, 100% real.

🤓 “Non-specific” simply means that the pain cannot be traced back to a single known cause.

📝 This also means that no test can reliably pinpoint the exact structure that might be contributing to the pain.

👉 90-95% of low back pain cases fall into the Non-Specific category, usually presumed to have a musculoskeletal origin.
 👉 Radicular syndromes (5-10%) involve conditions like radicular pain (e.g., Sciatica), radiculopathy, and spinal stenosis.
 👉 Specific Spinal Pathologies (

09/02/2025

Been a while… did you notice? 😉

Life needed my attention elsewhere, and I had to step away for a bit.

But I’ve missed this space and, most importantly, the connections I’ve made here. I’ve missed YOU 🫶

I may have missed a few things while I was gone, but I can’t wait to reconnect! 😁

The pull to come back has been getting stronger, and now feels like the right time. So, get ready for more of the good stuff (yes, still on a blue background 😆).

Drop a 💙 if you’re still here. And tell me: what have you been up to?

-Elisabetta

✅ FOLLOW me .physio.formula for more evidence-based content on Pain, Injury & Rehab!

28/11/2023

💥 Acute ankle sprains are a common injury, especially in sports.

‼️ Early diagnosis and treatment are key to avoid long-term issues, like chronic instability.

👉 Ankle sprains can range from mild to severe, and treatment may vary based on the severity of the injury.

🦴in general, immediate treatment involves protecting the injured area, keeping elevated and applying compression. Ice can help with short-term pain relief.

🦶🏻Early weight-bearing has shown important benefits, and regaining range of motion early on is fundamental.

🔪 More severe cases may require surgical interventions.

Thanks for reading! ☺️

Got questions?
⬇️ COMMENT below!

-Elisabetta Brigo
Physiotherapist & PhD Studentphysio.formula

✅FOLLOW me 👉.physio.formula for more evidence-based content on Pain, Injury & Rehab!

16/08/2023

💥 Being injured or in pain does NOT mean you have to completely stop exercising.

‼️ Actually, (in general) you shouldn’t, as that can actually be detrimental.

🤔 So how can you keep exercising when you’re injured?

😉 By using some exercise modifications to find an entry point, and gradually work your way back towards your goals!

So you may want to “play around” with:
1️⃣ Load
2️⃣ Range of Motion
3️⃣ Volume
4️⃣ Frequency
5️⃣ Speed
6️⃣ Rest Times
7️⃣ Exercise Variations & Selection

👉 Remember: don’t wait until you’re 100% pain-free before getting back to training (or you’ll likely get too deconditioned!)

💡 BONUS TIP: if you’re trying to recover from an injury, make sure to take care of your sleep, nutrition, general physical activity and stress management ;)

Have you ever stopped exercising because of pain or injury?
What has helped you get back to training?
COMMENT BELOW ⬇️

Thanks for reading! ☺️

-Elisabetta Brigo
Physiotherapist & PhD Studentphysio.formula

✅FOLLOW me 👉.physio.formula for more evidence-based content on Pain, Injury & Rehab!

27/06/2023

😌 Let’s talk “bad” exercise…

👉🏻Leg extensions and upright rows are good examples of exercises that some have demonised because they “put too much stress” on your knees and shoulders respectively.

🤨But is stress really such a bad thing?

💪🏻In truth, stress is needed to to elicit (physiological) adaptations.

🤓Indeed, If you want to become stronger, you need to stress your muscles; if you want to become fitter, you need to stress your cardiovascular system.

❌It makes NO sense to label an exercise as “bad” altogether, without taking into account variables like sets, reps, frequency, load, etc…

🤷‍♀️How many reps would I need to do before do leg extensions become “bad” for my knees? And how much weight? And how many sets?

👀 See the absurdity?

😒And to those who say that an exercise might not be “bad” for you now, but it will be in a few decades….well, it would be quite peculiar for someone to never get injured over the course of 20 years, right?

🚫And if you’re not convinced yet, know that NO research supports the claim that any exercise is inherently “bad”.

‼️Making things controversially black and white it (sadly) very common on social media, but it’s important to think critically!

What’s one exercise you were lead to believe was “bad”?
COMMENT BELOW ⬇️

Thanks for reading! ☺️

-Elisabetta Brigo
Physiotherapist & PhD Studentphysio.formula

✅FOLLOW me 👉.physio.formula for more evidence-based content on Pain, Injury & Rehab!

23/04/2023

⚡️“Sciatica” describes radiating pain down the leg, often associated with other symptoms like weakness, numbness and tingling.

💥 Disc herniations causing inflammation and/or compression of the sciatic nerve roots are the most common cause of sciatica.

📸 Imaging is NOT required for diagnosing sciatica, and should be performed only when pain persists longer than 12 weeks, or neurological deficits get progressively worse

⚠️ (Patients must be referred to urgent care in case of bladder/bowel dysfunction, suggesting of Cauda Equina Syndrome).

✅ Vast majority of patients improve over time with conservative treatment, including: sharing information about sciatica, acknowledging patients concerns, encouraging them to stay active, exercise, manual therapy, and pain management).

💊 Benefits of pain medications are uncertain, and they can have adverse effects.

🔪 Surgery may provide faster relief in the short-term, but at 1 year effects are similar to conservative treatment.

💪 If you are experiencing sciatica now and (understandably) feel functionally limited in your daily life, remember that no activity is “off limits” forever: even though it might take quite some time, the goal of rehab is to help you get back to the activities you love!

💭 Got questions about sciatica?
COMMENT BELOW ⬇️

Thanks for reading! ☺️

-Elisabetta Brigo
Physiotherapist & PhD Studentphysio.formula

✅FOLLOW me 👉.physio.formula for more evidence-based content on Pain, Injury & Rehab!

28/03/2023

🤷‍♀️ What even is “shoulder impingement”?

💥 Traditionally, “shoulder impingement” has been used to describe the compression of soft tissues in the subacromial space (i.e. a space found under the acromion, in the shoulder).

👨‍⚕️ This term has been around for about 50 years already, first popularised in the 70’s by Dr. Neer: he was convinced that most rotator cuff tears that he was seeing in clinical practice were caused by impingement.

🔪 So he then proposed a surgery to “fix” such impingement by removing some anatomical structures found in the shoulder to “make more space” and decrease the compression of tissues within the subacromial space.

‼️ And despite a LACK of concrete evidence, his ideas have deeply influenced clinical practice for decades.

Nowadays, though, we DO have high quality evidence showing that:
👉 this surgery is NO better than placebo or exercise;
👉 recommending also to abandon the term “shoulder impingement”.

We also know that:
✅ compression in the subacromial space is common;
✅ it happenes with everyday tasks;
✅ it can occur in people with symptoms just as much as in those without;
✅ a reduced subacromial space does NOT correlate with symptoms/pain or disability.

💁🏼‍♀️ Shoulders can hurt for a variety of reasons (pain is complex!), and most of the time is not even possible to pinpoint a specific structure to explain the symptoms.

🙌🏻 And the truth is that as long as a patient is experiencing non-traumatic shoulder pain that is not related to specific conditions like, say, frozen shoulder, then the treatment won’t change much based on the label that we put on it, but rather on the person in front of us.

💡 TL;DR: current high-quality evidence does not support the term and theory of “shoulder impingement”, and does NOT recommend subacromial decompression surgery either.

😊Thanks for reading!

💭 Questions? Thoughts?
⬇️ COMMENT below!

-Elisabetta Brigo
Physiotherapist & PhD Studentphysio.formula

✅FOLLOW me 👉.physio.formula for more evidence-based content on Pain, Injury & Rehab!

01/02/2023

🤔Can we really expect to live pain-free?

🤓 Pain is a natural phenomenon that helps to protect us from actual or potential danger.

🚨 Of course there are cases where pain becomes persistent, thus turning into an “impediment” rather than a helpful event (but that’s definitely a topic for another post).

❌ It’s easy nowadays to come across people (physios, trainers, influencers, etc…) who perpetuate the (very misleading!) idea that you can live pain-free — and they’re slap usually trying to sell you something (e.g. their “special fix” or something like that…).

👉 Truth is, pain is a NORMAL part of life, key to our survival: in fact, if we couldn’t feel pain, we could unknowingly get hurt, potentially putting our life in danger.

‼️ And expecting to NEVER experience pain in life and striving to live pain-free is just unrealistic.

💪 What’s actually much more attainable and realistic is striving to become RESILIENT enough to be able to deal pain without letting it take over our life.

💁🏼‍♀️ Because as long as we are alive, we should expect and accept that pain is bound to happen.

Thoughts? Questions? Comments?
Let’s discuss below ⤵️

Thanks for reading! :)

-Elisabetta Brigo
Physio & PhD studentphysio.formula

✅ FOLLOW me 👉.physio.formula for more evidence-based content on Pain, Injury & Rehab!

25/12/2022

✨Wish you a very Merry Christmas!

❤️ I hope you can spend some quality time with your loved ones, laughing a lot and making tons of good memories!

🙏🏻 And thank you for your constant support: I always appreciate it SO much!

🙌🏻 God bless you all!

-Elisabetta

23/12/2022

💪🏻 Lifting (heavy) weights is for women too!

😔 Generally speaking, women tend to engage less in (heavy) resistance training compared to men (although from our personal experiences this seems to be changing).

🏋🏼‍♀️ It’s actually very important for women (of ALL ages) to regularly engage in resistance training for its multiple health benefits.

These include:
💪🏻 Stronger bones;
💪🏻 Stronger muscles;
💪🏻 Better body composition;
💪🏻 Improved sports performance;
💪🏻 Reduced risk of injury;
💪🏻 Better heart health;
💪🏻 Better metabolic health;
💪🏻 Better sleep;
💪🏻 Reduced risk of cancer;
💪🏻 Better mental health;
💪🏻 Reduced risk of dementia;
💪🏻 Less chronic pain;

…And so much more!!

💭From your personal experience (think of the women in your life), do you think women are engaging in resistance training enough nowadays?

Let us know in the COMMENTS BELOW ⬇️

🙏🏻 Thanks for reading!

Don’t forget to FOLLOW US:
👉🏻
👉🏻 .physio.formula

The Physio Formula

29/03/2025

03/03/2025

12/02/2025

09/02/2025

28/11/2023

16/08/2023

27/06/2023

23/04/2023

28/03/2023

01/02/2023

25/12/2022

23/12/2022

Address

Website

Alerts

Contact The Practice

Shortcuts

Share