Common Sports Injuries and How to Treat Them

Posted by Barry Harpur on August 25th, 2015

There are several types of common sports injuries suffered by active individuals and athletes as a result of strenuous sports and exercises. Different parts of the body are susceptible to injury when playing sports or engaging in high-energy activities. Despite this fact, most sports injuries occur in the musculoskeletal system, among the most common of which are as follows:

• Sprains – Sprains occur when there are tears in the ligaments joining the ends of the bones together. Common body parts affected by sprains are joints in the ankles, knees, and wrists.
  
  
• Strains – Strains can refer to either tears or pulls in the muscles or tendons/tissues that attack your muscles to the bones.
  
  
• Shin splints – Commonly seen in runners, a shin splint, can be recognised by a sharp pain along the front and outside part of the lower leg.
  
  
• Achilles tendonitis – This refers to the rupture of the Achilles tendon, which include the large band of tissues that connect the calf muscles and the heel.
  
  
• Dislocation of joints and fractures of the bones are also common sports injuries along with groin pulling, and epicondylitis or tennis elbow.

This list can go on and on, but the most common of sports injuries are sprains and strains, which affect the ligaments and muscle fibres reflectively. While the occurrence of injuries is often beyond our control, there are things you can do to prevent them and reduce their incidence. For instance, conditioning yourself and warming up when beginning your work out is a simple trick that can hugely prevent common injuries. Warming up and stretching increases the blood flow to your muscles and helps you become more flexible, which in turn decreases injuries.

Treatment for common sports injuries largely depends on their intensity and acuteness. Ice is best applied to injuries immediately after they occur. The swelling and inflammation following an injury are largely caused by blood leakage from the ruptured capillaries around the injury site. Cold applications will cause these blood vessels to constrict, thus preventing further blood and serum leakage. Ice and cold applications also work to minimize the swelling and the pain.

Optimal management and treatment of injuries can be done by putting the injured body part to rest (minimizing movement) implementing cold compress (applying a cold pack with light pressure to the affected body part), and elevating or raising the injured body part so that blood pressure and tissue swelling can be reduced as natural fluids drain from the area with the help of gravity.

About the Company:

Kinesis Clinic based in the Guildford town centre provide the highest quality of osteopathic and injury rehabilitation services. They specialise in sports injuries, post-surgery rehabilitation, works related injuries and offer many more treatments. The service offered by them includes osteopathy, injury prevention, movement assessment & training, dry acupuncture needing, etc.