The body feels the repercussions from Sports at any level, you don’t have to be an elite athlete to need Osteopathy. Athletes and individuals who play sports regularly are more prone to develop sports injuries.

Some of the common sports injuries include muscle strains and joint sprains, tendon injuries, dislocations and fractures, herniated discs, to name a few. These can arise from day to day activity but every sport tends to see some sort of injury.

Also, sports injuries can often be caused by overuse and over-training, such as runner’s knee or tennis elbow where the player continually pushes their body to the limit. Sports injuries can also occur due to under training or poor training practices. Not stretching or having a warming up appropriately can also lead to many injuries as the body is not prepared for the exercise.

Proper sports injury management, rehabilitation, and advice can be sought from Osteopaths, and you should be able to fully recover and return to your normal sporting activity.

Specific treatment will depend on the part of your body affected and how severe the injury is.

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Treatment aims to:

  • Relieve your pain quicker
  • Reduce scar tissue formation
  • Get you back to sport & work sooner
  • Improving your performance

Osteopathy treatment techniques may include:

  • Ice and/or heat therapy
  • Joint mobilisation and manipulation techniques to restore range of motion in a joint that may have been compromised by the injury
  • Soft tissue massages to relax tight muscles, decrease swelling, reduce tissue adhesions, or pain relief.
  • Exercise prescription to enhance balance and co-ordination.
    • Stretching, muscles can become tight during periods of inactivity following an injury. Stretching can help loosen these tight muscles, thus, improving your range of motion (ROM).
    • ROM exercises can help improve or maintain your joint range of motion. By performing ROM exercise whenever possible, you can prevent your joints and muscle from becoming stiff. The range of motion exercises may also be combined with strengthening exercises once you have improved strength.
    • Strengthening, being inactive for a long time can make your muscles weak. Strengthening them is important to achieve independence in movement. Tailored exercises can help you maintain the strength of your uninjured muscles and improve the strength of your weakened muscles.
  • Patient education, one of the important aspects of osteopathic management is helping you learn self-care. This may be in the form of exercises, strapping/bracing, or how to modify your activity to reduce over stressing your injured part and learning self-treatment strategies.

Our Osteopaths will guide you safely back to the level of sport at which you wish to participate.