Osteopathy and Sports Injuries

The treatment of sports injuries by osteopaths is an increasingly popular choice for sportsmen and women. Athletes from many disciplines at many levels are seeking the osteopath’s unique skills and detailed knowledge of the body mechanics. Osteopathy can help keep you at your training peak and also enable a swift return to sport following strains and overuse injuries.

In the past, sports injuries have been examined and treated as separate problems and considered in isolation from the rest of the body. Treatment has been to only the injured part. Osteopaths consider all the factors, which may have led up to and contributed to the injury: these are often just as important as the injury itself and may slow or even prevent total and speedy repair.

The osteopathic approach also helps the body’s various parts to function, as they should, ‘for you and your sport’, the ‘whole’ body functions better and greater potential for improved performance is the natural consequence.

What Injuries can Osteopaths treat?

Osteopathy is particularly suited to assisting the sportsman or sportswoman with complaints as varied as back pain and tennis elbow, or hip problems and recurrent muscle injuries.

The osteopath’s unique approach to appraising an injury as well as the wide range of techniques and treatment approaches employed by osteopaths makes them ideal for the treatment of Sports Injuries. When a sportsperson consults an osteopath, he/she examines the posture and condition of those parts, which make the human body a dynamic machine - these include the muscles, ligaments and tendons of all joints from head to toe.

The osteopath examines the strength and flexibility of these tissues and considers how well adapted they are to the individual sportsperson and the chosen sport. This approach is suited for the treatment of complex and/or recurrent injuries.

Injury Prevention

The Osteopath’s skill in assessing the interaction between the many different tissues that combine to determine your body’s structure, to differentiate between areas of normal and abnormal function and to therefore recognise patterns that are potentially developing into sites of stress, strain and/or injury enables him/her to provide you with advice and treatment that should prove extremely valuable in helping you to recognise possible injuries before you are suffering any symptoms and, together with the Osteopath, to prevent such injuries from occurring.

Mobility of the body is of the utmost importance to an athlete. Poor flexibility in the joints will prevent the body performing at its best and is often an important contributory element to injury.

By using manual techniques, the osteopath provides the body with the best environment for repair, and enables it to function at its best.
Advice on self-care is always given to maximise the effects of treatment and minimise the possibility of recurrence. This may include specific exercises, technique tips, postural advice etc.

Who can it help?

Whether you’re an enthusiastic amateur or an elite professional, an osteopath can help with the prevention and treatment of common sporting injuries.

Many sports clubs at international level use the unique skills an Osteopath can offer. Currently osteopaths are involved in Football, Cricket, Rugby, Golf, Tennis, Athletics, Swimming, Squash, Cycling, Show jumping and Hockey.

Here at the Mersea Road Clinic we have an experienced team of Osteopaths with many sporting connections. These include an ex-professional footballer, a semi-professional footballer and rugby player, a horse rider and an ex-national martial arts champion.

Osteopathy in Action

A man in his late fifties, running at senior club level, had a calf injury in his right leg. After assessment by a variety of therapists he consulted an osteopath who discovered that the problem had been caused by a change of job two years previously. The man’s new job required a lot of standing up, and examination revealed his tendency to stand with his right leg slightly bent. As a result the calf muscle had started to shorten on the right hand side. Osteopathic treatment helped him to stand with a straight posture, reducing the tension in the right calf. A stretching routine was then prescribed and recovery from the injury was quickly achieved.

A forty year old woman, playing badminton and tennis at county level, had been suffering from severe tennis elbow for six months. She was concerned that the worsening pain would force her to give up her sport. Her osteopath discovered that her spine allowed little rotation, and that her shoulder muscles were unusually tight. He treated her neck (from where the nerve supply to the elbow arises), and worked on her shoulder and upper back mobility. This approach reduced the demands on her elbow. Free of pain, and benefiting from greater mobility, she recovered from the injury and was able to play more powerful tennis and badminton shots than ever before.

A 16 year old footballer, representing his county several times at U18 level, complained of recurrent hamstring injuries and right-sided low back pain over the past two years. This was despite of rest, various treatments and specialists’ opinions where because of unequal leg lengths a heel raise had been recommended, but more widespread symptoms had been created as a result. An osteopath’s opinion was sought and was able to demonstrate that very unusually because of sport, a ‘protective scoliosis’ had already started to become semipermanent. Thus the heel raise had forced additional stress which the spine was unable to compensate for. Treatment to enable the spine to re-align itself was carried out and a steadily increasing height of heel raise was gradually introduced. Exercises to maintain the developing flexibility helped to maintain the change. Resolution of the back problem also led (as anticipated) to a curtailment of recurrent hamstring injuries.