From Injury to Victory: How Sport-Specific Rehabilitation Facilitates An Athlete’s Comeback
It’s every athlete’s nightmare. You’re on the field or the court, your head in the game. Then, out of nowhere: sudden, debilitating pain. Maybe you hear a pop or a crack. Maybe you collapse to the ground. No matter how it plays out, no athlete wants to suffer an injury. Fortunately, sports injury rehabilitation helps ensure that an injury doesn’t have to spell the end of your career.
Helix Physical Therapy and Chiropractic offers comprehensive sports injury rehabilitation to help athletes of all ages, abilities, and levels resolve their injuries and get back in the game. Keep reading to follow the entire process, from injury to victory.
Meet the Athlete–And His Sports Injury
John had gone to college on a swimming scholarship and, ten years later, decided to take up the sport again as a way to get his exercise in. His return to the pool was seamless, his stroke movements second nature. He told his friends it was like riding a bicycle.
But then, six months into his triumphant return, John noticed a pain in his shoulder after his swimming workouts. It was more annoying than anything else, and he assumed it would go away on its own.
It didn’t. In fact, the pain worsened to the point that John could barely lift his arm overhead to grab something off a high shelf–much less freestyle swim for an hour. He knew he needed to seek professional help.
That was where Helix Physical Therapy and Chiropractic came in.
First Steps: Assessing the Injury
When John visited our clinic for the first time, he sat down with one of our physical therapists for an in-depth discussion about his symptoms and condition. He provided a complete medical history and shared that he was experiencing persistent pain, restricted shoulder mobility, and a sense of weakness and instability in his shoulder.
His therapists also performed simple movement screens, evaluating John’s range of motion and shoulder strength. By the time the appointment was over, both John and his therapist knew that he had suffered an overuse injury that strained the muscles and tendons in his rotator cuff. The injury even has an appropriate name: swimmer’s shoulder.
A Customized Sports Injury Rehabilitation Treatment Plan
Fortunately for John, his injury wasn’t severe enough to warrant surgical intervention, and physical therapy alone would likely be enough to resolve it. His therapist developed a customized sports injury rehabilitation program, and John began his physical therapy sessions in earnest.
Step One: Reduce Pain and Improve Mobility
In the initial session, John’s therapist used manual therapy techniques that would both reduce John’s pain and help restore his shoulder’s mobility. His therapist also showed him targeted stretching exercises designed to improve his range of motion.
Step Two: Build Strength
At Helix Physical Therapy and Chiropractic, we don’t want to simply mask your pain–we want to help you resolve the source of it completely. In John’s case, his swimmer’s shoulder stemmed largely from improper form; without coaching, as he had in college, he wasn’t getting the form corrections that would help him avoid an injury.
But because he had continued swimming even after the injury developed, his other muscles had started to compensate for the impairment in his rotator cuff. That meant he needed to restore the strength in his shoulder to fully resolve his injury. We got him started with a targeted strength training program that he completed both in the clinic and at home.
Step Three: Functional Training and Injury Prevention
Within a few months, John had resolved his swimmer’s shoulder. He was no longer in pain, and his exercise program had improved his shoulder’s strength and mobility.
At that point, we worked with him to improve those form issues that had led to his injury in the first place, helping him to recover the movements he had perfected when he was in college.
It wasn’t long before John was out of our clinic and back in the pool–and smashing his 400-meter freestyle PR. He also signed up for his first-ever open swim.
Looking For Your Own Customized Sports Injury Rehabilitation Plan?
The physical therapists at Helix Physical Therapy and Chiropractic have extensive experience rehabilitating (town)-area athletes after an injury–and often help them come back better and stronger!
If you’ve recently suffered a sports-related injury, call us to schedule an initial consultation today.