Post-Injury Management Strategies

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As much as we love to launch back to our usual routine prior to the injury, it may be detrimental to the injured area and potentially reverse the healing process.

We know how important it is for you to go back to doing sports and just performing daily tasks. Implement these strategies to help ease yourself back into shape to ensure you’re not going too hard or too fast and risk delaying. The following are recommendations that can help to assist your recovery:

• R.I.C.E

  Icing the area can be useful in helping to reduce the initial post-injury pain. Refer to our R.I.C.E article for more detailed instructions.

• Low management exercise

  It’s important to incorporate some simple exercises into your routine again after an injury and a period of recovery. However, that is not to say, go back at it at 100% intensity. Listen to your body and don’t risk injuring yourself further by putting your body through strenuous exercise from the get go. As the saying goes, slow and steady wins the race.

• Warm-up

  This tends to be the step most of us would want to skip. However, it’s a step definitely not be underestimated.

  What is Warm Up?

  Applying heat (making the muscle warm) to improve healing.

  How?

  • Massage

  • Light exercises to increase circulation (light jogging)

  • Stretching ( *additional reading available )

  The type of sport, its physical demands and motions will determine the warm up activities suitable for the individual. An appropriate warm up should be individualised to the person and the sport to be performed.

  The amount of time you spend warming up should be proportional to the intensity of the sport.

  Warm ups should:

  • get your heart pumping

  • engage the muscles required for the sport

  • mirror movements and skills at a smaller scale

  For example: before a marathon, loosened your legs up with walking, skipping, knee-high jogging; before a swim set, do some pull ups ; before a cricket match, do some low intensity throws

  Warming up is NOT just stretching!

  However, there are benefits to stretching:

  • neural effect - reduces motor neuron excitability

  • increase body temperature

  • stress relaxation

  • improves flexibility

• Manage training frequency

  • train 2-4 days a week

  • not back to back days

  • allow rest

  • avoid overuse muscle injury

  • can be more intensive by using lower load

Disclaimer: This article serves as a general guide to this topic, if in doubt seek professional help and advice from your doctor.