6 Ways Physiotherapy Can Help Your Sport Injuries

On October 14, 2022

 

 

 

Sports can be a terrific means to keep fit, build confidence, and meet new people.

Whether you’re an elite professional athlete or a casual weekend warrior, odds are at some point you’ve suffered an injury. As a matter of fact, approximately seventy percent of recreational athletes experience some kind of pain, aches, or soreness in their joints and muscles during an event. If you play any kind of sport, it’s almost inevitable that you’ll wind up feeling sore during your activity.

That’s due to the fact that the body goes through constant adaptations to loading. When we carry out high intensity movements or activities, our muscles may fatigue and begin to break down, before getting stronger.

Gradually, this microtrauma may result in structural injury in the form of muscle stiffness and/or tendinitis. An injury may keep you from playing your favorite sport, keep you off the court, field or turf for a prolonged amount of time, or lead to long-term consequences like chronic pain or diminished mobility. If left without treatment, some of these occurrences may result in tissue injuries.

The upside is that a sports injury does not need to keep you off the field or court for long. Physiotherapy has a wide range of manual therapies, exercise therapies and modalities that can help treat sports-related injuries and keep them from becoming chronic. Here are six ways physiotherapy treatment techniques may help your sports injury and provide pain relief:

 

Improve Capacity in Your Muscles

 

You’ve probably heard of this benefit in the past. Every action you carry out in your sport (such as throwing a baseball, running a race, or taking a slapshot) requires a particular level of strength. When it comes to tossing a ball, this includes the muscles in your lower body, trunk/core, elbow, shoulder, wrist, and hand.

In time though, these muscles can become imbalanced or weak. This problem can develop as we grow older and our bodies lose muscle mass.  This is known as sarcopenia. It can also take place if you’ve been playing a sport for a long period of time without providing your muscles a chance to rest and recover between bouts of activity.

Luckily, you can protect against injuries and increase your performance on the field with the strengthening workouts your physiotherapist can provide for you. Moreover, building up your existing muscles can help to resolve the discomfort, tightness and swelling that come along with any sports injury.

 

Treat Tendinopathy and Strain

 

The connective tissues in your joints can be subject to swelling and inflammation due to repetitive and overloading movement of your joints. If your inflammation is brought on by a small tear in the tendon, then physiotherapy can help to alleviate your tendinopathy.

Tendinopathy can be an inflammatory, or failed healing response that can develop in your tendons when they come to be irritated. Some activities, such as running or leaping, basketball and tennis are likely to cause it. If you suffer from tendinopathy or a strain, physiotherapy can deal with your injury quicker. It can likewise help you prevent an injury from occurring down the road.

 

Develop Mobility and Conditioning Exercises

 

As you get older, your muscles and joints usually become less flexible. This could be due to genetic makeup, injury, or an absence of regular physical activity. In addition, if you’ve been participating in a sport for a long time, you might have suffered structural imbalances that cause you to be more vulnerable to injury. For example, your shoulder muscles might be stronger than your lower back muscles, which can stress on the lower back.

If you want to avoid injury and increase your flexibility, you should attempt mobility and strengthening workouts. Your physiotherapist can teach you the appropriate exercises to increase your overall flexibility and restore joint function. Doing so can serve to help treat an injury, reduce your danger of injury, improve your flexibility, and increase your general range of motion.

 

Improve Your Range of Motion

 

When you’re injured, you frequently need to restrict your activities and/or your range of movement. Consequently, you risk developing discomfort, stiffness, and loss of mobility. Luckily, as you recover, your joints and muscles recover their full range of movement.

This process can happen really quickly, but it usually takes about 2 weeks for your muscles to start to recover and return to their regular shape. To prevent injury and accelerate the healing process, physiotherapy can apply therapies and workouts that enhance your range of movement. Doing this may ease discomfort, increase your mobility, and help you get back to your regular activities faster.

 

Reduce Swelling and Stiffness

 

As you heal from an injury and your muscle tissues get stronger, you might develop an accumulation of scar tissue. This is a regular part of tissue healing, and can help protect against future injuries. In fact, it can help you get back to your typical activities much more quickly. To reduce your risk of suffering from tightness, physiotherapy will help you to maintain your mobility and agility, even when you’re not exercising.

 

Avoid Overload Strain Injuries

 

An overload strain injury occurs when a previously minor injury ends up being aggravated as you return to a more extreme level of activity. For instance, if you’ve been playing basketball for a couple of weeks and you attempt to leap higher than you normally do, you could end up reinjuring your ankle.

Overload strain injuries can happen in any sport when the typical level of activity is increased, and are most common in sports that include repetitive motion, such as weight training, soccer, football, tennis, golf and basketball. Physiotherapy can eliminate stress injuries by correcting alignment during high load tasks, reducing pain, and improving circulation to the afflicted area of your body.

 

Summary

 

Physiotherapy can help treat lots of sports injuries, including sprains, stress, stress fractures, tendinopathy, joint pain, and joint dislocation. Sometimes, you might even have the opportunity to prevent injuries from taking place.

If you want to minimize the risk of injuries and increase your performance on the field or court, you should try physiotherapy. Physiotherapy will help you strengthen your existing muscles, treat your tendinopathy and muscle strain, develop novel movement and strengthening workouts, enhance your range of motion, reduce inflammation and stiffness, prevent repetitive strain injuries, and prevent reinjuries.

Contact the friendly staff at Expert Physio and let us start helping to relieve your sports injury.  Now accepting new clients!

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