It’s spring, and for many in Arizona, that means outdoor sports season is starting. Baseball, football, and soccer games can be found on most fields across the Valley, and the number of runners, hikers, and bikers on roads and paths seems to have exploded recently. With increased activity, there’s naturally an associated increase in potential for injuries. But even if you do get hurt on the field, it doesn’t mean your season has to end. As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and you can do a lot to both prevent injuries and rebound quicker if they do occur.
Injuries typically occur in one of two ways: through repetitive motion or as a sudden jolt, usually when a body part hits something (the ground, another person). There’s a way to prevent the first, but the second is often truly an accident and cannot be foreseen.
Repetitive Motion Injuries
As an athlete, you repeat similar moves frequently: swinging a bat or tennis racket, hitting the pavement while running, or moving your shoulders up and down for bench presses. All of this over-and-over movement can cause irritation in your joints and muscles. One simple solution is to stop doing that motion, but that can’t always be a plausible solution, especially if you are training for an upcoming event.
Many regular exercise enthusiasts are so eager to get to their activities that they fail to remember a key component to staying safe and injury free when they’re working hard: stretching. Be sure to warm up prior to your activity and cool down following, including some good stretches that will limber up the muscles you’ll be using during the focused part of your workout. Incorporating yoga into your “off” days will also add to your flexibility and the body’s ability to recoup faster.
Accidental Injuries
When you land wrong and your knee or ankle twists, there’s little that hurts more. These jolts cannot be predicted, so there’s little to do to prevent them. Of course, stretching, staying in shape, and not expecting to be able to run a marathon without any prior training can help to avoid such injuries, but they’re not always adequate insurance.
When you do hurt yourself in the middle of a game, go to the sidelines and assess. It’s much better to take a little respite and determine how serious your injury is than to keep walking on that twisted ankle. Listen to your body; it will tell you what you need to know.
When an Injury Occurs
Should you find yourself in pain, the best thing to remember first is RICE: rest, ice, compression, elevation. Grab an ice pack, sit yourself down, place the injured body part up on the couch, and let the ice do its job. An anti-inflammatory medication, such as ibuprofen, may be taken to help with the pain and to lessen any swelling.
If icing and resting don’t curb the pain and inflammation in a day or two, it’s time to seek outside help. While traditional medicine might send you to an orthopedist and weeks of physical therapy before you see any improvement (not to mention the possibility for surgery!), acupuncture offers a much more immediate solution. By going right to the source, properly placed needles can resolve not only pain but the underlying issue in as little as a few sessions and usually no longer than a month. Of course, if acupuncture alone doesn’t work, it does partner well with many other treatment modalities, including holistic approaches such as massage and chiropractic, as well as the more traditional options of a medical evaluation and physical therapy. A combined system can mean a faster recovery for much longer. Many patients who incorporate acupuncture into their treatment find complete resolution to their pain, whether it was acute or chronic.
If you are suffering from pain, let’s see if acupuncture has a solution that’s right for you. It’s non-invasive, drug free, and for many people, opens up a world of possibilities.
