What is Sports Physiotherapy?
Sports physiotherapy is a discipline of physiotherapy that is aimed at anyone who practices sports on a regular basis, whether from a recreational or amateur point of view, elite or high performance, or simply to improve their health.
Currently, due to the rise of recreational sports (running, paddle, etc.), there is an increasing link between the athlete and the sports physiotherapist. Also, in the field of high performance, more and more importance is given to the physical preparation of the athlete, making the involvement of sports physiotherapy is of great need for the demands that are generated.
How does it work? What does it bring to the athlete?
Sports physiotherapy is based on doing preventive work and other injury recovery depending on the time we are. As for the preventive work, it consists of improving and working the muscular condition of the athlete, avoiding the loads and correcting the bad sporting gesture. It is important to perform a static and dynamic study of the sports technique and body posture looking for different deficits that may cause an increased risk of injury; to, once found, work them, either by therapeutic exercise, as with other techniques of physiotherapy.
Regarding the recovery aspect of injuries, after the medical diagnosis (mainly performed by sports medicine doctors or sports traumatologists), an early physiotherapy recovery process begins in which different techniques will be carried out depending on each case (type of injury, patient’s sport, patient’s physical condition, etc.).
Normally a premise that should not be forgotten is followed, that of early mobilization, which facilitates a correct recovery of the injured tissue avoiding the appearance of atrophy (which will lead to a slowing of the recovery process). As the process progresses, different progressive loads will be implemented to prepare the injured tissue and the athlete for their sporting activity. At this time, passive physiotherapy techniques (invasive techniques, electrotherapy, unloading massage, etc.) will not be as important as in the acute period of the injury, but progressive and functional loads will be implemented through therapeutic exercise.
What are its main objectives?
The benefits we get from preventive work are multiple, mainly avoid the risk of injury and improve sports performance, as the muscles will be at its highest level of strength, power, elasticity, resistance to fatigue, etc.. In short, with a good preventive work we could avoid many injuries. On the other hand, in terms of treatment through sports physiotherapy, our goal is to recover the injury in the shortest possible time with all its functionality and avoiding recurrence, respecting the biological repair times, in addition to readapting the athlete to training.
What are the most common sports injuries and how does sports physiotherapy contribute to their recovery?
Sports injuries are all those that appear as a result of doing sport. Thus, we will have injuries with a “more traumatic” component (those produced suddenly as blows, falls, tackles, kicks, sprains, muscle pulls, etc.), we speak of ankle sprains, sprains of anterior cruciate ligament, meniscopathies, muscle injuries by indirect or direct mechanism, etc..
On the other hand, we will address injuries with a more “overuse” component (those that appear insidiously, caused by repetitive and continuous efforts), we speak of tendinopathies (rotator cuff, patellar tendon, Achilles tendon, etc.), groin pain, anterior knee pain, stress fractures, mechanical low back pain, etc..
Sports physiotherapy seeks that each of these sports injuries recover in the shortest possible time (taking into account the biological repair time) so that the athlete stops as little time as possible (this is essential in competitive sport) and also recovers in the best possible way so that when he/she returns to sport, he/she is in optimal physical condition. In addition, the preventive work of sports physiotherapy will involve minimizing the risk of suffering this type of injury.