If you have a sports injury, you know how much it can impact your training schedule, performance and daily activity. Training for your sport is still a necessity, but now you have to keep a watchful eye on how you use your body so you don’t further injure yourself or lengthen your recovery time. Mondo Sports Therapy offers a trained therapist who can carefully assess your body to evaluate how you train, and study how your injury developed in the first place. From there, we’ll offer you tips and techniques to help you meet your fitness goals without sustaining further damage to your body, and help you get back into competition as soon as possible.
When should you seek medical assistance?
You should always seek medical assistance when you’ve sustained an injury, however, you may want to treat yourself at home first, especially if the injury doesn’t seem very significant. You can follow R.I.C.E (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) at home but only for initial relief from pain and inflammation. You should still seek out a qualified physician’s opinion and diagnosis. You should also get medical assistance as soon as possible, if any of the following conditions are present:
- When pressing directly on the bone reproduces your specific complaint of pain.
- When the pain is so severe you can’t do daily activities or sleep
- When the affected leg or foot can’t bear your weight
- You’ve received a head or neck injury
- Your range of motion has been severely limited
- You experience numbness or tingling sensations
- Any activity you do increases the pain
- If you experience the same complaints of pain for three straight workouts
- After R.I.C.E for 48 to 72 hours if there’s no improvement
What are some myths about injuries?
You probably have heard some of these familiar myths about injuries. It’s time to dispel the myths and tell the truth for once and all.
MYTH: If you have an injury, you should exercise through it, because “no pain, no gain.”
TRUTH: The body needs stress to adapt in strength, however, continuing the same activity level and pressure could cause you to worsen your injury. You should exercise in a way that doesn’t put stress on the injury.
MYTH: Rest is always best, so when you get injured, just rest up.
TRUTH: Rest is part of the treatment program for injuries, however, it doesn’t actually address the cause of injury. You will need to have your injury properly diagnosed and a treatment plan developed to prevent the injury from reoccurring once you have ended your period of rest. Rest can only reduce inflammation and pain a bit, but it doesn’t provide healing.
MYTH: Stretching will help you alleviate the pain.
TRUTH: In some cases, stretching an injured tissue can actually aggravate your injury further. You should go to a physician as soon as possible when you sustain an injury, and hold off on stretching it until you have received medical advise.
MYTH: You should “play through the pain” and it will go away.
TRUTH: Never follow this old adage, or you run the risk of aggravating the injury more. When you feel pain, it’s your body’s way of sending out a message that something is not quite right. Listen to your body, and stop to seek treatment.
We can assist you in modifying your training program during your rehabilitation period and work with you and your coach to tailor your workouts to progressing you back towards your necessary fitness level for your competition needs. As a post-collegiate athlete, Katie has extensive experience in training modification and is also a level 1 USAFT coach; she is ready to help you get back to peak performance.
For more information or if you would like to know if injury training modification would be a good treatment option for you, please schedule an appointment or contact us.
