The first time you have a major injury is just a step in the giant cascade of mishaps that often follow. Sports injuries are divided into two different kinds: acute and chronic. Acute injuries are the kinds of things that happen suddenly. For example. you slip and twist your ankle or break your collar bone in high contact. Chronic injuries are the result of many years of exercise and body breakdown. For example, avid runners may have knee problems and ballerinas may never see their toes the same.
Injury isn’t all that uncommon, unfortunately. Around 30 million high school students and children do some kind of organized sports and of those, about 3.5 million get injured each year. In fact, around 33% of childhood injuries are related to sports. Kids from 5-14 years old make up around 40% of all sports injuries. As they get older, their injuries become more severe.
Physical therapy is likely the most widely-used way to address injury, including sports physical therapy for injuries pertaining specifically to sports. Physical therapy activities can address back pain, knee pain, and all kinds of other ailments. Although, it can be hard to find physical therapist that works just right for you. To find physical therapist that can identify the right pain management activities you have to ditch the “is physical therapy hard” question and start asking yourself, “am I willing to work toward a stronger body?”.
The reality is, not addressing an injury will hurt your body in the long run. Physical therapy works to restore a body to its usual functioning. Knees are the most commonly injured body part when it comes to sports. Those who injure their knees, and especially those who don’t follow through with physical therapy, have a 6-fold higher chance of experiencing osteoarthritis, the most common cause of joint replacement.
Taking care of your body should be a no-brainer, but so many people let things go long enough that joint replacement is all that makes sense. To avoid this reality, give your body the physical therapy it needs, when it needs it!
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