Sports injuries – don’t wait for them to get worse!
Many of us enjoy playing sports in our spare time, be it training with the local football team, lifting weights at the gym or a great game of tennis on a Saturday morning.
However, even with a thorough warm up before exercise, sometimes minor sports injuries can result. Of course, most people take an anti-inflammatory, not knowing that it can do more harm than good to interrupt the healing process.
Unfortunately, it may be that there is another underlying weakness or problem that is the real cause behind the current injury.
We recommend that you come and see an expert who can determine what’s really going on within the body. Osteopaths are highly trained to go looking for the root cause of the problem.
For example, there may be a problem evident in the heel or ankle. An Osteopath will make an inspection of the whole limb, right up to the hip, into the spine and up to the neck. We then very carefully analyse what’s causing the local pain.
And you’d be quite surprised at what we might uncover! There may be a fundamental fault far away from the symptoms such as in a seemingly unrelated joint, tendon or muscle.
Because all the systems of our bodies are interlinked and dependent on one another, Osteopaths search out the root cause which might even relate to prior sports injuries or a problem which occurred many years before! Osteopaths never assume what the cause might be; we follow the evidence until we find the culprit. Then we gently work towards easing that area back to health. In doing so there’s often an improvement in the painful zone and usually we see better mobility there too.
Imagine the problem of plantar fasciitis – very painful heel (usually) because of an overstretched soft tissue being repeatedly strained. The culprit could be the hip joint which needs attention. Therefore no amount of massaging of the symptoms or painkillers which will tackle the ultimate root cause. Many patients naturally ask why their whole body is being assessed as well as their foot but most report that they longstanding improvement when a global approach is taken alongside alleviating pain.
Keeping your body in ultimate condition will help to prevent damage whilst taking part in cardiovascular exercise and help you to achieve your best and avoid sports injuries.
