Sporting injuries – The Secrets to Injury Prevention

How can you stop sports injuries, especially recurring injuries, from happening?

Let’s face it, whether you are a recreational or serious athlete, injuries are frustrating.

You are probably aware of the basics of how to keep yourself in shape – but it’s possible there are some simple errors you are making that increase your chances of injury.

Let’s run through a quick check and see how well prepared you are …

How to Stop Recurring Injuries

Unless you have been extremely lucky or are very young, you are likely to have had at least one or two injuries in your sporting life.

Whether it a be something minor like a mild hamstring strain, or something more serious like knee ligament damage, these are often the areas that end up being most vulnerable moving forward.

It stands to reason then, that one of the best ways to prevent injury is to stop old injuries recurring.

Sporting Injuries – The problem of scar tissue

If you have over-stretched, torn, strained or sprained a muscle, there is a better than average chance your body has created scar tissue as part of the healing process.

Regardless of how the soft-tissue injury occurred, the healing process is pretty much the same.  The injuries usually happen because the muscle has been forced to stretch and contract at the same time. This damages and weakens the site of the injury.

When scar tissue forms after injury, your body has produced excess collagen. The initial collagen production is there to add strength to the site of the injury, but any excess production can make the site more rigid and inflexible.

To use an analogy, the muscle becomes a bit like a paint brush that you haven’t cleaned properly after use. It becomes more rigid and inflexible the next time you try and use it. This creates extra tension in that area which  increasing the risk of repeat injury.

The two best ways to treat scar tissue are with ultra-sound (which will help but can’t do the whole job). And through deep tissue massage, which will definitely help to give a more thorough breakdown of the offending scar tissue.

Other causes of injury

There are of course many other causes of injury. But here are 3 more things you are possibly doing wrong that you can rectify right away.

The wrong kind of warm up.

A warm up should be progressive and gradual. In other words it should be like going through the gears in a car. For many, a warm up is a slow gentle jog that proceeds a full sprint. It’s like going from first to top gear – it just doesn’t make sense. Allow time in your warm up for the body to get properly prepared.

Lack of recovery time

What ever your sport you need time to rest and recuperate. Many injuries are overuse injuries. You should plan and stick to rest days in the same way you plan and stick to training days.

Lack of cool down

Collapsing on the sofa at the end of a long run doesn’t constitute a cool down. The body has to re-adapt to any stresses you put on it. Whatever your sport, be sure to stretch and allow the body time to gradually cool down at the end of your training.

We hope this information is useful for you. If you have any questions about our treatments, please contact us. You can find us in Islington and Mill Hill Broadway. If you like this blog, please share!

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