How to Prevent Sporting Injuries With Sports Therapy

Taking precautions to prevent sporting injuries should be a concern for anyone active in sports. Preventing injuries is less painful, less time-consuming and less difficult than treating injuries, and it is the chief goal of sports therapy.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Sports therapist

Know Your Limits

1. Be realistic about what your body can handle. If you are starting a new sport, take time to learn about it and its physical demands. Consider your age, fitness level and experience when deciding whether a certain sport is appropriate for you.
2. Realize that you have limits. Sports therapy uses exercise science to expand your limits and improve your physical capabilities, but don't try to do too much too fast. Gradually condition your body to prevent injury.
3. Accessorize appropriately for injury prevention. Wear a brace or have a sports therapist tape a problematic joint before you start to play your sport.
4. Learn from your past injuries. A muscle, tendon, ligament or joint that has been injured once is more likely to cause problems in the future, so have a sports therapist design a therapy program to strengthen and protect your problematic areas.

Prepare Yourself

5. Warm up your muscles gradually at the start of a workout and before competition. Sporting injuries are much less likely to occur if your muscles are eased into activity.
6. Stretch thoroughly after your warmup and before strenuous activity begins. Be sure to stretch all the major muscle groups. It is important to have your joints and muscles loose and relaxed before you ask your body to start working its hardest.
7. Train for your sport. Training should be specific to your sport, but it should also promote muscle balance. Many sport injuries are caused by muscle imbalance, in which some muscle groups are especially strong from regular use, while others are weak.

Keep in Touch With Your Sports Therapist

8. Find a sports therapist you like and trust. Use your gym or ask your healthcare provider to find contacts. Make sure your therapist is credentialed and ask for client references.
9. Communicate with your therapist. If you are experiencing a problem or anything unusual, it could be a precursor to injury. Discuss it with a sports therapist to prevent it from developing into a more serious problem.
10. Meet with a sports therapist whenever you start a new sport. She will be able to teach you stretches and training techniques specific to preventing sporting injuries that are common in your chosen activity.

Tips & Warnings

• If your therapist assigns you physical therapy exercises to do at home, make sure you do them. Therapy exercises are not "busy work." Instead, they are designed with your best interests in mind.

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