Exercise helps and brings together people of all ages. There is truly nothing better than the adrenaline pumping through your body with the eagerness in pursuing your goals whether it be in sports, for health or personal well-being. It doesn’t matter whether you are a professional athlete, a gym-goer or an average joe, we all want to improve our individual performance. With the amount of stress we place on our bodies, this is when injury prevention becomes important.
Injuries occur when an excessive amount of stress or force is placed on our bones, joints, ligaments and muscles. Usual causes are due to overuse, repetitive motions or sudden trauma which includes sprains and muscular tears.
As a physiotherapist, there are many passive and active treatments that we can provide to prevent this from ever happening to you. Exercise prescription, manipulative therapy, soft tissue releases and electromagnetic therapy are just some of the modalities in our skill set.
From the history taking we are informed of any pain or injuries from the patient themselves. We, as therapists, assess and examine whether or not there are any imbalances or weakness between the two sides that may contribute to injury later down the track and to determine whether the cause is joint or muscular related. From the results of the assessment, the treatment would be focused around improving the mobility of the joints and building up the working muscular capacity of the muscles to be able to deal with load to optimise function. As a result of the improved capability of the muscles to deal with load, it also helps protect the joint providing greater support and helps properly align the bones.
One simple injury-prevention task you can employ before any exercise is having a proper warm-up circuit and loads of stretching. The pre-activation and lengthening of the muscle not only ‘wakes up’ the muscle but also allows for greater recruitment of the muscle fibres producing maximal voluntary force.
If you would like to know more about injury prevention or would like to be assessed today to prevent injuries yourself, call us today to book in a session with us!
We look forward to helping you achieve your goals.
