Sports Therapy
Sports Therapists focus first on the prevention of injury, and then rehabilitation, to help get you back to your best level of function.
What Is Sports Therapy?
Sports Therapy focuses highly on the individual’s lifestyle, including profession, fitness levels, hobbies and posture. This is done by a comprehensive, initial assessment which will include a full posture assessment, and a spoken and physical assessment to fully understand where the root of the pain is coming from.
This is followed by a personally tailored treatment and may include relevant sports massage techniques, mobilisation techniques, stretching, taping techniques and a full rehabilitation programme tailored for your individual requirements.
Treatments are not just beneficial to the sports person, but to anyone with aches, pains or injury.
Why do people come for Sports therapy?
Most common reasons:
- People suffering from muscle tension
- People suffering from joint stiffness
- Sporting Injuries
- Aches and pains
- Frozen shoulder
- Golfers/Tennis elbow
- Tendonitis
- Back pain
- Whiplash
- Plantar Fasciitis
- Shin Splints
- Achilles Tendonitis
Initial Consultation
Your first visit
During an initial consultation, the process begins with an in-depth review of the patient’s medical background. Following this, a physical assessment is carried out to pinpoint the key issues. This evaluation focuses on the patient’s range of motion, strength, flexibility, and identifies any areas of pain or discomfort.
The treatment phase employs evidence-based practices customised to the individual’s needs. Techniques such as soft tissue therapy, cupping, exercise prescriptions, TENS and ultrasound therapy may be utilised to address the identified issues effectively.
Subsequent to the treatment, the consultation progresses to goal setting and session planning. During this stage, realistic and measurable objectives for rehabilitation and recovery are established, taking into consideration the patient’s specific situation. Additionally, the discussion will cover the anticipated duration of the treatment and the frequency of sessions required to achieve the best possible outcomes.
Techniques That we use
Soft tissue manipulation
Massage is designed to assist in correcting problems and imbalances in soft tissue that are caused from repetitive and strenuous physical activity and trauma. The application of massage, priorto and after exercise, may enhance performance, aid recovery and prevent injury.
Rehabilitation/corrective exercise
Corrective Exercise is a technique that leverages an understanding of anatomy, kinesiology, and biomechanics. This is to address and fix movement compensations and imbalances to improve the overall quality of movement during workouts and in everyday life. Corrective Exercise is used to help assess and determine the root cause of imbalances and faulty movement patterns that lead to issues with posture, balance, and total body coordination.
Strapping/taping
Taping is commonly used as a protective mechanism in the presence of an existing injury. Some of the goals with taping are to restrict the movement of injured joints, and soft tissue compression to reduce swelling. support anatomical structures, and as protection from re-injury. Taping is used as one of the means of rehabilitation in instances where support and stability are needed, for the prevention of injury and protection of an injured anatomical structure while healing is taking place.
Cupping
Cupping therapy is one of the oldest and most effective methods of releasing toxins from body tissue and organs. It is a practice in which the therapist puts special cups on the skin to create suction. This causes
the tissue beneath the cup to be drawn up and swell causing an increase in blood flow to the affected area. Enhanced blood flow under the cups draws impurities and toxins away from the nearby tissues and organs toward the surface for elimination. This is particularly useful after prolonged inflammation of an area following injury.
Ultrasound
Therapeutic Ultrasound is used to detect and treat various musculoskeletal issues you may have including pain, tissue injury, and muscle spasms. The ultrasound machine works by sending an electric current through crystals
found in the ultrasound probe. The probe vibrates, causing waves to travel through the skin to the tissue underneath. The waves transfer energy to the tissues causing changes to the fluid dynamic and encouraging the nature healing process to begin.
TENs/NMEs
TENS is a method of electrical stimulation which primarily aims to provide a degree of symptomatic pain relief, by exciting sensory nerves and thereby stimulating eitherthe pain gate mechanism and/orthe opioid system. Neuromuscular and Muscular Electrical Stimulation (NMES) is a modality that sends electrical impulses to nerves which causes the muscles to contract mimicking the action potential coming from the central nervous system. Both treatments are safe and effective forms of therapy which support the therapist during the treatments to aid recovery.
The benefits of a sports therapy
- Increased muscle blood flow
- Raised muscle temperature
- Increased lymph flow and the removal of toxins from the muscles
- Break down of adhesions and scar tissue which builds up overtime causing tension
- Relieves muscular pain
- Physiological and psychological preparation for a race or event
- A positive sense of wellbeing,relaxation and lowered stress levels.
- Improved sleep patterns.