It helps people recover from sports injuries faster. It helps athletes avoid future injuries. It is utilized by every professional sports team. It is suitable for any athlete regardless of their age, sport or ability level. It’s sports therapy: helping you get back in the game and stay there.
Regardless of your athletic goals, you only stand to gain from sports therapy. The Acucare Physical Therapy team has made sports therapy a major part of our practice precisely because it delivers such great results.
How does sports therapy do it? Let’s look a little closer at exactly why sports therapy accomplishes its two major goals.
How Does Sports Therapy Treat Injuries?
If you’ve injured yourself playing sports, then you should have only one thing on your mind: rehabilitation. It’s why you should immediately practice the RICE method after receiving a sprain or strain. It’s why you should give your body adequate time to rest and heal as well. But if a sports injury persists – or otherwise impairs your athletic performance in any way – then sports therapy likely presents your best path toward full recovery.
Many techniques have been developed to reduce pain and restore function. So long as they don’t involve drugs or surgery, a sports therapist could conceivably implement any of them. For example, Acucare has already successfully treated many patients with Astym: a manual therapy that activates natural regenerative mechanisms within the body to accelerate recovery from soft tissue injuries ranging from golfer’s elbow to plantar fasciitis.
Massage. Ultrasound. Electrical stimulation. Joint mobilization. Specially selected exercises. Even low-gravity running. Any of these common sports therapy treatments can help the body make a fuller, faster recovery from most of the injuries that commonly afflict athletes.
How Does Sports Therapy Prevent Injuries?
You already understand why balance is important to injury prevention. No one has ever become better off for losing their balance. It’s a major reason why Americans sustain more than 8 million sports- and recreation-related injuries each year.
Many sports injuries could have been totally prevented if athletes only had better balance. It should come as no surprise that sports therapy is designed to give them exactly that. By strengthening the muscles responsible for posture, trunk control and locomotor performance, sports therapy directly improves balance – as well as the ability to correct it quickly.
We’re about to drop a heavy word on you: proprioception. It may sound strange, but you have been experiencing it your entire life. Also known as kinesthesia, it’s your innate ability to sense your body’s movements, actions and location. Are you falling? What is your right leg doing? Are you standing on a slanted surface? You know the answers to all of these questions thanks to your sense of proprioception.
Sports therapy improves proprioception as well. Exercises that improve balance also improve the body’s ability to sense its place at any given moment. So too do joint stabilization exercises, as well as unstable surface training and agility drills.
Balance and proprioception aren’t enough on their own. If you want to do everything you can to avoid a sports injury, then you also need strong muscles. When you strength train with a sports therapist, you’ll wind up placing less stress on your bones and ligaments. That’s the key to joint injury prevention!
Are you looking for a way to bounce back from a sports injury, prevent a future sports injury, or both? Then we welcome you to contact Acucare Physical Therapy today to schedule a consultation in our Sioux Falls, SD clinic. With a better understanding of your physical condition and athletic goals, we’ll be able to customize the treatment that makes you a better athlete!
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