Physiotherapy and Sports Injuries

Athletes, players, sport competitors commonly suffer sports injuries due to the unpredictable nature of sports, extremely intense training and physical exercises. When that happens they turn to physiotherapy for rehabilitation. Physiotherapy, also called physical therapy, offers help whether the player is having surgery to correct the damage or not.

One of the most common sports injury is the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury. Statistics show that the incidence of ACL injury is considerably higher in people who participate in high-risk sports, and in people who play sports that challenge their knees, such as hockey, skating, skiing, basketball, and of course, football and soccer. It can limit the range of a player’s motion in that leg and make the leg weak.

Surgery is sometimes required for severe sports injuries, but physiotherapy is always a part of the treatment. There are three important exercises that help to start the healing process of ACL, namely heel slides, quad sets, and straight leg raises.

Heel slides are exercises for ACL sports injuries that are easy to understand, but may be painful to do at first. One simply lies on the bed or floor with the foot down. Then, one slides the foot slowly towards the buttocks until it hurts a little, and slides it back. This and the other exercises help prepare the knee for surgery or to heal without it.

Another of the sports injuries that physiotherapy is used for is lateral epicondylitis or tennis elbow. Players get tennis elbow from playing tennis, of course, but it can also come about from any activity that involves twisting the wrist.

Sports injuries like tennis elbow are treated with a comprehensive plan of physiotherapy. Exercises are explained and assigned. Another common procedure for sports injuries is the use of ultrasound. Ultrasound is a way of applying heat deep into the muscle for pain relief.

Electrical stimulation is used to relieve pain that is felt when special nerve endings detect that something is wrong. It is successfully used for tennis elbow, racquet sports and a variety of other sports injuries. Massage, manual therapy or manipulative therapy, can also be used for physiotherapy.

Massage is considered one of the oldest methods of health care treatments. Massage therapy represents the scientific manipulation of soft tissue for the purpose of normalizing dysfunctional soft tissues in the body. However, soft tissue manipulation is to muscles what chiropractic is to bones. It deals not only with muscle, but with tendons and connective tissue as well. It is a specialized field of physiotherapy that has been successfully used for people with sports injuries.

Nowadays, as more and more children’s sports teams are getting extremely competitive and sometimes aggressive, sports injuries among young athletes is increasing. In order to prevent children from suffering unnecessary sports-related injuries, the current methods of youth sport practice should be revised. However, when injuries occur, it is very important that parents make sure their children get adequate physiotherapy. Children are constantly changing and developing and an untreated problem in childhood can lead to lifelong pain.

Many sports injuries are caused by a specific traumatic event to the body, such as tearing ligaments in a knee from landing wrong or spraining an ankle while running. Other times, it is simply a matter of the inappropriate physical demands you put on your body.

Physical activities and sports have amazing proven health benefits, besides are fun and a great way to keep fit. When you enjoy sport and physical activity, the last thing you want is to suffer an injury. However, by following some simple rules many sporting injuries can be prevented.

Physiotherapy is pivotal in the healing of many sports injuries. Most of the professional sports teams have physiotherapists on their staffs. In fact, either ACL or tennis elbow can become permanent conditions without the use of physiotherapy procedures.