Canadian Catastrophies: Common Sports Injuries

At Oriole Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Centre, we offer quality care for sports injuries. Our staff is attentive and will help heal your injury as quickly and effectively as possible. If you suffer from any sports injury, please don’t hesitate to call us today to get you back to what you love.

Prevention

First off, know what is expected of your body in your sport. Don’t take a physically demanding job if you have trouble running a mile or can’t lift more than ten pounds. When you know what is expected, get in shape. Stretch, train, and improve your body and muscles.

Don’t overwork your muscles. When you push yourself to the extreme, it can cause serious damage. If your body isn’t used to such strenuous work, an injury is more than likely. You can tear muscles or twist them. Listen to your body. When it is telling you to stop, do it. You will be doing yourself a favor. Now, let’s dive into common injuries:

Tennis Elbow

You can get tennis elbow, of course, by participating in racquet sports. You can also incur the same symptoms from weightlifting and fencing. If you injure yourself and cannot do these activities again, you can still take part in sports that need no power grip, including cycling or swimming.

Rotator Cuff Tendinitis

Rotator cuff tendinitis can happen with any sports requiring you to raise your arms overhead. These sports include volleyball, swimming, baseball, weightlifting and tennis. If you’re a weightlifter and neglect working out your back, you can severely injure yourself. Without training all your muscles, an imbalance is created in your body resulting in rotator cuff tendinitis. However, after sustaining an injury like this you can still take part in running, biking, and elliptical training.

Runner’s Knee and Jumper’s Knee

These two injuries often come hand in hand. Runner’s knee is the softening of the cartilage behind the kneecap. Jumper’s knee is inflammation of the tendons below the kneecap. These injuries often happen when you play basketball, volleyball, and soccer or are a runner. Women are particularly susceptible to injury if they haven’t played sports in a while or are just picking them up. This can happen because wider hip bones cause more stress on the knees, resulting in an imbalance.

Ankle Sprain

Ankle sprain is one of the most common injuries. This can happen when you suddenly change stances or direction. You can get an ankle sprain in almost every sport. The sprain is usually accompanied by bruising, tenderness and pain. You are still able to take part in core exercises or anything that keeps weight off your legs.

Achilles Tendinitis

You can get Achilles tendinitis if you are an active runner or participate in sports that involve a lot of running (such as basketball or soccer). It sounds a lot worse than it is. Expect a sharp pain or a sore ankle that worsens over time. However, left untreated, it can be extremely debilitating.

Treatment

There are many treatments for sports injuries. The first thing to do is rest. Apply ice and pressure (compression) and elevate the injured area. (The acronym for this approach is R-I-C-E: Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation.) However, chronic pain requires the help of a professional, and physiotherapy can be a great way to return you to top physical condition. Physiotherapy includes many forms of healing exercise and movement, exercising and acupuncture. Physiotherapy is great because you are walked through how to treat yourself effectively, and empowered to get yourself back on your feet faster.

At Oriole Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Centre, we offer quality care for sports injuries. Our staff is attentive and will make every effort to help heal your injury as quickly and effectively as possible. If you suffer from any type of sports injury, please don’t hesitate to call us today to get you back to the activities you love.