Athletes are competitive by nature, and if you suffer an injury that keeps you from competing, you may feel like you’re letting yourself and your team down. And while you can’t control that an injury happened, you can take some control over your recovery and your rehabilitation program. By doing the right things in the aftermath of an injury, you may be able to recover faster and rejoin your teammates sooner. In today’s blog, we explore five ways that athletes can recover faster following a sports injury.
Speeding Up Your Sports Injury Recovery
Keep in mind that the following tips are just general advice. Injuries are incredibly unique to the individual, and the recovery protocol for a concussion will be inherently different from someone with a soft tissue tear. With that said, this general advice can help you work towards a faster recovery for many minor to mild sports injuries.
- Get Off The Field – The competitive desire to remain on the field may push you to play through the pain, but trust us when we say that it’s just not worth it. Missing a game or two while you recover from an injury is better than trying to play through discomfort, making the problem worse and missing the rest of the season. Really take a step back and consider what is right for your long-term health and don’t let short-term desires cause a minor injury to become a major problem. Give your body the short-term rest it needs to begin the repair process and protect it from additional damage.
- Ice – Ice isn’t going to magically heal torn tissues or un-sprain your ankle, but it will help to limit swelling and inflammation in the area. Swelling is your body’s natural attempt to protect an area from additional damage, but too much swelling can inhibit the healthy flow of fluids in and out of the area, which ends up slowing down the healing process. By controlling swelling and inflammation with cold packs after an injury, you make it easier for the area to get the healthy blood it needs to aid in tissue repair. Icing won’t shave weeks off your recovery, but it will help to move the healing process along faster than unchecked inflammation.
- Physical Therapy – Physical therapy will be the single best thing you can do to help the injury heal and get back on the field. Rest alone won’t ensure that you get back to a pre-injury level of fitness, you need to proactively strengthen the injured tissue. Doing this without professional guidance isn’t easy, as you need to push your body outside its comfort zone while also recognizing that certain areas are still weakened as a result of the injury. A physical therapist can help you toe this line and ensure the proper areas are targeted without increasing your risk of a setback.
- Onramping – Missing just a few days of exercise or practice can set you back further than you’d expect from a conditioning and endurance perspective. If your body is fatigued during activity, you’re at a heightened risk for injury, and if you’re working your way back from injury already, you don’t need another risk to worry about. A physical therapist can help you develop a conditioning program and exercises tailored to your specific sport so that you are ready to handle the physical demands of your sport as you work your way back. Don’t just assume you’ll be able to jump back into athletics at the same level of fitness as you had before your injury without any targeted effort. Let our team help onboard you back to your specific sport to keep your injury risk low.
- Mental Demands – Finally, an injury and the physical demand of a sport can have a real impact on an athlete’s mental health. You may find that you’re dealing with new or complex emotions or mental health issues during your recovery, and if not properly handled, they can serve to slow down your rehab. Again, a physical therapist is a great resource for helping you manage the physical, mental and emotional burden associated with an injury and the required recovery. Don’t let the emotions associated with a difficult injury or recovery end up causing problems for your rehab.
Let the team at OrthoRehab Specialists get you back with your teammates sooner after an injury. For more information, or to book your first appointment, give our team a call today at (612) 339-2041.
PT of Costa Rican National Soccer Team for 2007 World Cup in Victoria, CAN. Clinical Instructor for University of Minnesota Doctor of Physical Therapy Affiliations
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