For those of us who love an active lifestyle, sports are often in our DNA. Scrapes and bruises are part of the fun, but it all stops when you get a debilitating injury. Sports physiotherapy is the best way to make sure your body is ready for anything you throw at it.
But what is sports physiotherapy?
Physiotherapy has a reputation for being useful only while rehabbing after an injury. However, you can also use it to help prevent injuries before they happen. Proper care and exercise can go a long way.
It's always possible to improve your body and reduce the chance of injuries. Read on for a full guide to how sports physiotherapy can help prevent injuries.
When it comes to sports physiotherapy, this is one of the major ways it can help prevent injuries. Working on your strength and flexibility enables you to avoid aggravating old injuries. It can also reduce the chances of creating new ones.
Think about your body for a moment. You use movement in everything you do, and that movement takes a toll. Therefore, the weaker the various parts of your body are, the more likely you are to suffer a fatigue-related injury.
A big example is in your core. Weak core muscles are often responsible for back injuries. This is especially noticeable with lower back injuries like you get when lifting.
Twisting the wrong way with a weak core can cause you to pull something or throw your back out. Hernias can also happen, with age being a notable factor but not the only one.
With physiotherapy, it is possible to strengthen the important muscles you use. Athletes often overuse particular muscles depending on their sport, which you can target. Legs and hamstrings, core muscles, shoulders, and everything in between all count.
You can also improve flexibility to avoid twisting, rolling, or pulling something. The better prepared your body is, the easier it will be to prevent injuries.
Sports physiotherapy allows you to work on issues like tissue damage, muscle spasms, and inflammation. All these can result from previous injuries or be warning signs of worse injuries to come.
Going to the right sports physiotherapy clinic is crucial to your physical well-being. You'll save yourself from injury by working on reducing these issues and improving weak spots.
Take inflammation, for example. The swelling you get is your body's natural response to an injury. If that inflammation becomes chronic, however, then it can be never-ending.
By helping control inflammation, you help your body get to the recovery part faster. Swelling and soreness also make you susceptible to further injuries. This is worth considering when recovering from an injury or trying to avoid future ones.
It can also be difficult to recover or avoid injuries if you have chronic muscle spasms or nagging tissue damage. Dealing with these through massage, temperature treatments, and rehab exercises is crucial.
Active sports physiotherapy can help you improve your range of motion. This has several crucial benefits. For one, it can help improve your game or athletic performance.
Having more control over your range of motion is never a bad idea. What's more, is that doing so can save you from injury. It doesn't take much thinking to realize how.
When you play active sports or engage in athletics, you need to move. You run, jump, stretch, twist, and turn. It's inevitable that you'll find yourself in awkward angles, especially if things get competitive.
As mentioned earlier, improving your core strength and flexibility helps with this. However, your range of motion is so much more. It's the ability to fully control and master your body and how far it can go or stretch.
Proper stretching exercises, as well as massage, can help you improve your range of motion. This makes it much less likely to overexert yourself and cause an injury.
Let's use basketball as an example. Stretching your arms out above your natural limit to block a shot or hanging off of a dunk causes strain. We know what it's like to push our muscles and joints a bit too far, and we almost always regret it after the game.
Improving your range of motion can help you reach that extra 5% and avoid potential injuries when you try it.
Physiotherapy sports regimes don't get enough credit for how they help cardiovascular fitness. It's a fact that your heart plays a vital role in injury recovery and prevention. The reason for this is pretty straightforward.
Your heart pumps your blood, and your blood carries crucial oxygen to the parts of your body that need it. Without fresh oxygen, you wouldn't be able to recover as quickly from an injury. Because of this, anything which helps improve blood circulation also helps against injuries.
Improved circulation and cardiovascular fitness reduce fatigue. Fatigue is a major factor in how likely you are to develop an injury or strain. The best physiotherapists understand this and can make a regime that helps.
Many cardiovascular exercises, like running, walking, or cycling, are good options. Aerobics and resistance band training can also help and works on other areas at the same time. You'll also be less likely to develop an injury if your overall cardiovascular fitness is in tip-top shape.
Now you know how sports physiotherapy can help prevent injuries. A combination of exercise, stretches, proper massages, and care all make a difference. The more you care for your body and muscles, the better off you will be.
Of course, it also helps to have a team of professionals you can trust. At Awesome Physiotherapy, we know all about working toward improvement and recovery. Contact us today to find out how we can help you in your injury prevention journey.
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