The Importance of Physical Therapy for Sports-Related Injury

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The Importance of Physical Therapy for Sports-Related Injury

Physical therapy has been an important part of treating athletic injuries for decades. But increasingly, amateur and professional athletes alike consider the specialized form of PT known as sports therapy to be invaluable.

This type of sports medicine not only helps people recover from tears, sprains and breaks, but can also condition the body to perform better, and to resist future injury.

Injury Prevention and Performance Enhancement

One crucial area of sports medicine is injury prevention. You don’t have to be a pro athlete or on a school team to benefit from sports therapy. People who are training for a 10K run — or even undertaking a long weekend of sports fishing — can all benefit from sports therapy services. Likewise, athletes about to head into a major game or tryout can help better their performance and avoid injury by working with a physical therapist.

A physical therapist will evaluate everything from your range of motion, to strength levels of specific muscles. A physical therapist is trained to understand what different types of sports or activities require from their participants. This training allows them to analyze what areas the individual needs to develop.

Does your sport require intense cardio? If you tend to lose endurance midway through each event, your therapy services can be geared to improving your cardiovascular capacity. Likewise, if  back injuries are common with the activity you pursue, building up your core will be part of your individualized injury prevention plan.

Injury Rehabilitation

There are as many types of possible injuries as there are sports. Yet there are some types which therapists repeatedly treat. Among the most common sports injuries for which athletes seek therapy services are:

• Fractures and breaks. From hard falls to collisions on the field, broken and fractured bones are some of the more common reasons athletes need therapy. The immediate injury can be treated in the hospital. But if in the cast or on crutches is prolonged, you may need sports therapy to rebound from the weakened muscles.
• Torn ligaments and tendons. Shoulders and knees can really take a beating on the court and field. Groin injuries are also more common in sports than in daily life. Torn and snapped ligaments and tendons come from sudden, sharp movements.
• Repetitive sports injuries. If you’re a pitcher or a tennis player, you know that when your sport demands you to do the same move over and over, you’re bound to get “tennis elbow” or a rotator cuff injury. Joints become stressed from overuse, and tendonitis or arthritis can set in.

Injury rehab will focus on minimizing pain, while also healing the injured area. This can take the form of specialized massage, taping and electronic nerve stimulation machines. Therapy services will also work to strengthen the surrounding areas, which tend to weaken when the affected area can’t be use. Get in touch with our team at STI Rehab today and schedule your sports therapy appointment!