While you may think of the phrase "no pain, no gain" when it comes to being physically active as part of your day-to-day life, this isn't necessarily true. The team of physiotherapists serving Orleans and Ottawa are here to explain how we can help alleviate and prevent pain through sports physiotherapy.
Working out or participating in sports, whether that be running, lifting weight playing hockey or curling, comes with some risk of injury. The repeated and strenuous movements involved in sports means that by participating in them, you are more likely to sustain an acute or progressive injury.
When it comes to preventing and mitigating these injuries, there are a number of strategies that may be available to you. In order to give yourself the best chance at avoiding pain and discomfort as well as setbacks in your performance, it's generally recommended that you consult with a sports physiotherapist such as a member of our team in Orleans.
The following are some of the examples of the advice you will likely receive if you come in for treatment or a consultation with our sport physical therapists in order to manage your pain, recover form injuries and maintain your general health and well-being.
Warm-up and cool-down
Every workout that you do should start and end with dedicated periods of light exercise to warm up and cool down.
Warm ups gradually increase your heart rate and loosen up your muscles before you begin pushing yourself to your limit, easing your body into activity and giving it time to adjust to the impacts and strain associated with sports. Cools downs slowly bring your heart rate back to its normal rate and gives your muscles time to adjust to no longer performing the activity.
Warm-ups and cool-downs that our sports physiotherapists may recommend include light jogging, jumping rope, riding an exercise bike and stretching.
Ease into it
At any time that you pick up a routine workout or sport after some time off, make sure you start up slowly and don't push yourself too hard too fast. Instead of leaping into action and pushing yourself to your limit immediately, gradually build the intensity and duration of your activity. Many of the acute injuries that people experience in sports result from pushing themselves too hard, too fast.
As your fitness increases, so too will your ability to challenge yourself. This advice can apply just as easily to starting an activity for the first time as it can returning to a workout routine that you have done for a long time after a break. if your push yourself to the level of fitness you are used to before your break or in other realms of physical activity, you will likely cause an injury!
Cross-train.
Just as you shouldn't push yourself too hard, make sure you don't overwork specific muscles of yours by doing and single activity for too long. The frequent repetition of the same muscle movements without rest periods can lead to injuries like tendinitis that may be caused by consistent overuse.
In order to avoid this, vary the muscle groups you work out each day as much as possible. The specifics will always vary depending on the individual, so make sure that you ask your physiotherapist what kind of cross-training and workout planning will work best for you.
Know your trouble spots.
When considering what workout to do, always keep in mind areas of your body which you are problem areas. This can include muscles you have injured and still need time to rest, or areas that are weak and need strengthening.
While you might be able to determine what part of your body hurts or feels weaker than others, you should always ask your physiotherapist about targeting workouts to the parts of the body that are giving you trouble. A physiotherapist will be able to help you to identify not only your issues, but the exercises that will be able to help you to strengthen your body holistically in order to alleviate pain and prevent injury down the road when performing the same activity.
Sports Physiotherapy in Orleans and Ottawa
At Motion Works Physiotherapy Orleans, our team of physiotherapists are able to help to alleviate the pain and speed the healing of a sports injury in addition to strengthening your body and improving your exercise form to help prevent future incidents and injuries.
If you have suffered from an acute workout injury, the first step will always be to control any swelling pain, often including icing, resting, compression and elevation of the injury. The dissipation of the pain, however, doesn't mean that your injury is healed.
If you do not properly rehabilitate and retrain after an injury, you will be at risk of not only your injury recurring but of it becoming a new and more serious issue entirely. Our Orleans physical therapists are able to provide you with individualized treatment programs that may be able to help you recover form your injury and rebuild your mobility, injury resilience and strength.
Some of the treatments we offer include:
- Stabilization with tape or bracing
- Manual Therapy for joint restrictions or stiffness
- Acupuncture for the management of pain and swelling
- Active exercises to restore flexibility, strength, endurance and balance
- Ultrasound and other electrotherapy agents for the management of acute injuries