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Pay Attention To Injuries To Bounce Back Faster
Category: General Sports Injuries
Sep 15, 2006
By Arietta Paulus, athletic trainer, Summa Health System
Athletes do not always “bounce back” from an injury. But a little bit of knowledge concerning common injuries among athletes, immediate treatment, and a few prevention tips may help speed up recovery.
Sprains
The joints of your body are supported by ligaments. These ligaments are strong bands of connective tissue that connect one bone to another. A sprain is a simple stretch or tear of a ligament. This type of injury can result in tenderness, swelling, inability to move the ankle and even an inability to stand or walk on the injured ankle.
Among the most common of sprains is an ankle sprain, which often can happen when your foot turns inward, causing tearing of the ligaments on the outside of the ankle. Because a person can sprain his ankle simply by stepping from the curb, 23,000 ankle sprains occur in the United States every single day.
Do not be one of these statistics! There are things you can do to reduce your risk, such as wearing proper shoes and paying attention to walking and running surfaces. The best way to prevent ankle sprains is to maintain good strength, muscle balance and flexibility.
Strains
Muscles and tendons also support your bones. A strain may range from a simple stretch in a muscle or tendon, or it may be a partial or complete tear.
A common troublesome condition for athletes is a hamstring strain. The hamstring is actually a group of muscles on the back of the thigh. Hamstrings cross two joints (hip and knee) and are involved in both flexing the knee (i.e. lifting your foot towards your rear) and extending the hip (i.e. getting you back to a standing position when you bend forward at the hips and kicking the leg back like in the sprinting motion).
Recognizing hamstring strain • Least Severe: simple tightening and soreness of the muscle
• More severe: sharp pain in the back of the thigh, usually happens in full stride
• Rupture or tear: may leave you unable to stand or walk, tender to touch, painful to stretch, and this area may bruise within a few days after the injury
Hamstring injuries are easier to prevent than to cure. Properly warming up and stretching both before and after exercise and also making sure that your hamstrings are strong by including a hamstring strengthening exercise in your routine will help to prevent hamstring injuries.
Growth Plate Injuries
We need to pay special attention to sport injuries and complaints from young athletes. These athletes do not always “bounce back”—often because they are suffering from an injury to a growing area at the end of a bone. These growing areas, or growth plates, injure more easily than tendons and ligaments in young athletes.
Therefore, an activity that may cause a sprain in an adult may cause a more serious growth plate injury in an adolescent. Prompt medical attention is needed for injuries especially when it involves a young person.
If a ten year old soccer player “twists” her ankle, it is unlikely a sprain. It is more likely a growth plate injury. When a twelve year-old cheerleader does the splits and feels a “pop” in her hamstring, it is more likely a growth plate injury where the hamstring muscle attaches on the bone. When a fourteen year-old running back is dragging a defender on his leg as he tries to drive his knee forward, the “pop” he feels in the front of his thigh is likely a pelvic growth plate fracture and not a hip flexor strain. These types of injuries need someone trained to take care of them – like a sports medicine specialist.
Take the right steps to treat injuries as soon as they happen by getting prompt medical attention by a sports medicine specialist.
Immediate Treatment: follow R.I.C.E
Rest: Stop using the injured body part; immediately (i.e. stop running and walking). This may require crutches.
Ice: Apply an ice pack to the injured area, using a towel or cover to protect your skin from frostbite. Ice keeps the swelling down. The more conforming the ice pack the better for the injury to receive maximum exposure to the treatment. It can be used for 20 minutes, three or four times daily.
Compression: Use a pressure bandage or wrap over the ice pack to help reduce swelling. Never tighten the bandage or wrap to the point of cutting off blood flow. Also, applying a compression bandage or brace between ice treatments will be beneficial in keeping swelling down.
Elevation: Raise or prop up the injured area so that it rests above the level of your heart. This will also help to reduce swelling to the injured area.