As an active individual, you often identify with your sport. You are a runner, a boxer, a weight lifter or a footballer. So when an injury takes you away from that sport, life as you know it changes completely.
Day-to-day tasks that were once easy are now challenging; your schedule changes because everything takes longer; you experience pain that isn’t normal and your mind-set is different because you don’t have your stress-relief outlet.
You begin to go stir-crazy and start feeling more aches and pains that do not even feel related to your injury. An injury affects your entire world, but the truth is, it doesn’t have to. When an injury occurs, it may initially only effect about 10% of our body. So what happens to the other 90%? Often when an athlete is injured, they focus solely on the injury and forget that the other 90% of their body is healthy and in fine working condition. Just because your knee, elbow or shoulder is restricted, does not mean that all of your other joints are too. It is important to use the other 90% to maintain fitness levels, decrease stress and assist the rehabilitation process. Of course it’s not always this black and white, each scenario is specific to the individual, but that’s why we love our jobs.
At SV Sports Therapy, we get to assess, design and implement treatment programmes that are tailored to each person’s specific needs.
Keeping this active recovery philosophy in mind, an individualised programme incorporates both hands-on treatment and specialised exercises to allow each person to rehabilitate his or her injury without neglecting the other 90% of their healthy body.
This treatment style ensures you stay fit and get back to your activity or sport sooner rather than later. Our specialty is keeping people with injuries active! So the next time you have an injury, ask us how you can continue training that 90% while healing the injured 10%.
Case Study: Kody Vaisanen, ice hockey player
Kody suffered a full ACL rupture while playing ice hockey in Canada and had reconstructive surgery to repair it. In the videos, he is performing exercises in the late stages of healing (8 - 9 months post-operation), on the brink of returning to playing.
As he is a high level competitive ice hockey player, the aim was to challenge the lower body in a sports specific environment.
Although he is not on the ice, challenging him with agility and plyometric work on dry land helps ensure he is ready to be back on the ice.