Sports Injuries

Sort Tissue Injuries

Thankfully soft tissue injuries are relatively rare and unless your a professional athlete pushing your body to the limit its actually quite difficult to pull a muscle or strain a ligament.

However occasionally it does happen and the osteopathic approach as always is to increase circulation to the tissues. Depending on the severity of the injury it may be best to rest and ice for one or two days before hands on treatment is started. When the time is right an individually tailored graded exercise program can be started to make a full recovery.

Its important to remember soft tissues have a healing time and the goal of treatment is to promote circulation and reduce congestion often caused by inflammation. Maintain tissue flexibility to reduce re-injury and increase strength and coordination.

Often with an sports injury its more important to manage the athlete than the injury. A runner for example wants to run! If they have strained a calf or hamstring muscle and are unable to do so, in order to maintain fitness levels they would be advised to swim or cycle until the injury has resolved.

With soft tissue injuries its extremely important not to re-injure the tissue before full healing has taken place as this will double the healing time. Unfortunately this is all too common with professional footballers.

Tendonitis

A tendinitis is a common soft tissue injury that if left untreated can become a chronic problem lasting years. The sooner treatment is started the better the chances of making a recovery however with a chronic tendonitis it can take some time until improvements are made.