As the summer sports season finishes and the winter sports begin, it’s a common time to have an influx of new patients with injuries sustained at sport. Whether it’s hockey, soccer or netball, the beginning of the season appears to bring about many new aches and pains. This isn’t just pertained to elite athletes, however we see this across the board, whether it be the NRL athlete, or the weekend warrior at Hazlebrook Soccer Club. Why is this so?
More commonly than not, the injuries we see are not a result of an acute injury; rather they have been developing in the background over a period of weeks or months until they cause pain. These sudden painful episodes are often caused by repetitive microtrauma – this occurs when the body is unable to keep up with its repair and re-strengthening needs, thus the tissue is damaged and becomes symptomatic. The cause of this repetitive microtrauma is a result of extrinsic and intrinsic factors.
Extrinsic factors include those that are outside of the body, i.e. training intensity/frequency, footwear, training surface etc. These are easy to modify, however if modifications of extrinsic factors fail to help, it leaves the intrinsic factors – factors within the body. Intrinsic factors result from muscle imbalances or structural alignment problems. The place to begin when looking at resolving an injury is to rule out the extrinsic factors and determine what intrinsic factors are contributing to the presenting problem. The best way forward is a well designed examination to investigate the structural, biomechanical and functional aspects of the patient. At Hands On, we call this our Solution Package. From here we can best gauge your treatment approach. What differs chiropractic from other treatment modalities is that the chiropractor will look at supporting structural alignment and improving biomechanical imbalances, not only at the site of the pain and injury, but also at other areas the contribute to the problem. This means looking at the muscles, ligaments and joints as a whole and how they function together.
Once the symptoms have decreased to the point that you’re back in the sporting arena, it is important to have full resolution of the original complaint. Your best safeguard against a recurrence is a comprehensive approach to rehabilitation.
Written by Ryan Hislop on Friday 1st April 2011. Posted in Hands On Blog
