Sports Fitness Injuries

Sports Fitness, Rehabilitation, Injuries and Recovery Advice for all your sporting questions

If you are engaged in any kind of sport and are looking for information on and ways to heal, recover from or prevent injuries then I’d like (if I may) to offer here some advice and tips which I use myself as a triathlete and have found especially useful.

For everyone who plays a sport at any level whether professionally or just for fun or fitness, sport and injuries, sprains & strains are an accepted risk which most athletes don’t really take seriously or pay any attention to preventing, normally until it is already too late. Most sports injuries are easily preventable.

While it is impossible to prevent every injury, research suggests that injury rates could be reduced by 25% if people took the appropriate measures to prevent injuries including some basic steps such as:

1. Prior physical condition.
Make sure you have at least a basic level of fitness before undertaking any heavy sports exercise. Amateur sportspeople have a high rate of sporting injuries as they tend to expect the sport itself to get you into shape.

2. Learn & follow the sports rules
Knowing and understanding the rules of your chosen sport will help to reduce injury risk levels and they are after all there to help keep the sport safe.

3. Warm Up & Down.
When watching professional sports you very rarely see the sports stars warming up or down, but believe me they all do it and then some more. Warm muscles and joints are much less likely to get sprains or strains than cold muscles.

4. Wear the Right Equipment.
Different sports have different protections available and are there for a specific reason, not for ‘wussies’. Check your pads, guards, helmets and gloves etc regularly and never play without the required safety gear.

5. Rest & Recovery.
Keep your body in the best shape possible by giving it the regular rest that it needs and do not ignore the little warnings it gives you, just to be ‘tough’. In order to prevent injuries and especially rehabilitation injuries this is vitally important. If you are tired or in pain – don’t play.

6. Think Simple & Did You Know?
In five recent sports and injuries research studes, something as simple as having an additional insole in the training shoes resulted in 50% less injuries than the group not using the insoles. Consider the cost of a good insole at only $10 compared to the cost of an injury. A further 5 sports fitness studies showed a similar approx. 50% injury reduction rate when using sport knee, ankle or wrist supports.

Within these pages, there are many useful tips which can not only help you to prevent or aid in healing your injuries, but can also help you get more enjoyment and satisfaction out of your favourite sport. I use the majority of these methods myself in my triathlons and hope they help you as much as they have me.

‘Keep On Keeping On’