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Sporting activities put the human body under huge forces. When the
average person runs for 1 hour, each foot strikes the ground 10,000
times. It is no surprise then that runners and other athletes develop
painful syndromes. In sport small abnormalities like stiff joints in
the foot, muscle weakness in the hip or stiff calf muscles can create
large problems after enough repetition. A stiff joint in the ankle can,
for example, reduce shock absorption and cause more force to be transferred
to the knee, hip and spine.
The job of the physiotherapist in sporting injuries is to understand
the biomechanics of the human body sufficiently to be able to identify
these small abnormalities and know how to correct them.
Common treatment for sporting injuries include;
- Biomechanical analysis
- Joint manipulation
- Joint mobilisation
- Taping to offload painful structures
- TENS for pain relief
- Education regarding exercise modification programs
- Reeducation of movement to reduce the stress on painful joints
and muscle
- Soft tissue treatment (including soft tissue release and myofacial
techniques)
- Foot taping or orthotics to correct foot motion
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