Leading Sports Physiotherapy Care in Adelaide

SPORTS PHYSIOTHERAPY ADELAIDE

Sport is a passion – and we understand the frustration of injuries keeping you from doing what you love!

Benefits of Sports Physiotherapy

Sports physiotherapy isn’t just about rest – finding ways in which we can get an athlete continuing to train safely during rehab is important: both to help manage the injury, and to help maintain fitness & performance.

Through having extensive experience in sports physio in North Adelaide, working with teams and athletes at all levels, we can help get you back on the field, and performing at your peak, sooner.

Your physio will tailor an individualised rehab plan, specific to you & your injury – working on specific individual needs to get you fit & firing again, and mapping out each stage along the way back to your sport.

TOP / COMMON SPORTS INJURIES ADDRESSED BY SPORTS PHYSIOTHERAPIST

Hamstring Muscle Strain

Typically occurring when sprinting and running at speed, hamstring muscle injuries can be particularly tricky as they are prone to recurrence – which is why a detailed, specific rehab program focusing on restoring strength and progressively returning to running is crucial to not only getting back to sport, but staying in the game.

Calf Muscle Strain

The calf is crucial to running – producing anywhere up to 8-12 times body weight worth of force when we run. Given this, calf muscle injuries are really common in any sport that involves running – although it is an injury that is increasingly common in males, and as we age.

Ankle Sprain

A sprained, or ‘rolled’ ankle, is common to all sports – and nearly everyone would have had one at some point in their lives! Whilst most are straight-forward and do generally get better, some can be more complicated and require more specific treatment, whilst also there are a number of really effective strategies people can be doing to reduce their risk of re-injury when they get back to sport.

Tendon Injury / Tendinopathy

Tendon pain can commonly occur in many areas of the body, such as the Achilles tendon (ankle/foot), the Patella tendon (knee), the Gluteal tendons (hip); along with the rotator cuff tendons of the shoulder and other upper limb tendons. Tendon pain stems from the tendon being loaded more than its’ capacity – so building increased strength around the tendon is key to get on top of this.

Knee Injury

Knee injuries are common in sports, particularly jump/land sports and direction-change sports. Good knee function is crucial to sport, and a range of injuries can affect different structures within the knee – from ligament sprains and muscle injury through to cartilage injuries.

Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) Injury

A well-known, and common, serious knee injury is injury to the Anterior Cruciate Ligament, or ACL. These injuries are particularly common in football, netball and soccer – and with a higher risk and rate of injury in female athletes compared to males. These days, a number of different management options are possible – from surgical management (reconstruction) and subsequent rehab, to rehab only / non-surgical management. Your physio will be able to help you determine which management approach is most appropriate for you, and guide you through every step of the rehab process.

MANAGING ACUTE INJURY

We’re often asked by athletes about what to do when injury hits – do I use heat or do I use ice? How long should I have the ice on for? Should I stretch it out or let it rest?

There’s a lot of confusion as to how to look after an injury in the early stages – which isn’t helped by the ever-growing number of acronyms out there summarising the steps. So we wanted to make things simpler – and give you a straight-forward guide as to the best ‘first-aid’ steps when looking after an acute injury.

Firstly, what are we trying to achieve in the early stages of looking after an injury?

Ideally we’d like to wind back the clock and stop the injury happening, but unfortunately what’s done is done!

What we are doing now in the early stages is trying to protect the injured tissue and prevent further damage, and limit the extent of bleeding, swelling and scarring.

Protect the injury – rest initially, but not for too long!

This is to avoid making things worse, as the injured tissue can’t cope with much in the early stages. This is just for the first 48-72 hours though, when most inflammation occurs – longer periods of rest aren’t helpful; indeed, getting moving again is the things that helps the injured tissue repair & regenerate, and get it back up to the strength we need it to be.

This is where a sports physio is really helpful after injury, as a sports physio can help determine what’s still ok to be doing, and what you should be steering clear of initially. This is the concept of ‘Optimal Leading’, and it’s all about balance: doing too little and doing too much can be as bad as each other, but finding a happy medium that’s “just right” is the ideal!

Ice up

There has been some debate more recently as to whether we should or shouldn’t be using ice in acute injury – however the bulk of the evidence still indicates that ice is a good strategy not only to help with pain relief, but also to control bleeding & swelling, and limit secondary tissue damage.

As a guide, I recommend to people to use ice for 10-15 minutes at a time, repeated every 1-2 hours – this way, we’re using ice often to help limit bleeding & swelling, but without longer treatment times that risk things like ice burns.

Use Compression

We use compression for the same reason we use ice – to limit bleeding and swelling. The great part about compression is that it’s simple, and requires little effort – whether it’s using a compression bandage or putting on your compression tights, you’re doing something to help.

Above all else, do no HARM to the injury in the first 48-72 hours!

This is one acronym that hasn’t changed over the years – and if you’ve done an injury, you need to be avoiding Heat, Alcohol, Running (or other vigorous activity) and Massage in the first 48-72 hours.

All of these things will exacerbate bleeding and swelling, along with damage to the soft tissue fibres – remember: our goal in the early stages is to limit the damage.

What about anti-inflammatories?

Anti-inflammatories are commonly used by athletes of all levels, but their use is controversial: we need to ask whether we actually need them – and whether there are any negative effects to having them.

The first thing to understand when talking about anti-inflammatories is that inflammation actually helps the healing process: it is necessary, and does a lot of useful things. So whilst we may want to limit or control it, we don’t want to stop it altogether – which is why ice may be more appropriate to limit it, rather than jumping to anti-inflammatories as a first step. There may be times when we do need to use them, but for most cases, we shouldn’t just reach for an anti-inflammatory!

Bear in mind that here we’ve only been talking about the early, or ‘1st stage’ management here: the first 48-72 hours. In this stage, we definitely don’t want you doing any stretches or other rehab exercises, but after a couple of days, when the bulk of the inflammation has settled, this is when we start people doing rehab (The ‘2nd stage’) – and this is where it’s really important to get in touch with a physio to help get moving safely and plan your rehab, so you can get back to your running as soon and as safely as possible!