Sports Physical Therapy: How it can Help

Whether you consider yourself an average joe, a weekend warrior, or a restless recovery case, sports therapy can help.

Sports Physical Therapy isn’t just for parents with injured athletes or adults who run marathons every weekend.  Sportsmed PT is about more effective exercising and stretching, increased mobility, and pain-free activity. Whether you love rock climbing, swimming, running, playing basketball, or all of the above, this type of therapy can help you stay active for the long haul.

Why Does Sports Physical Therapy Matter?

​Sports therapy matters because you have goals and aspirations that require you to stay healthy. Whether your sport is super competitive or as casual as they come, to reach your individual milestones, you need to treat your body well. When you have a tightness or a nagging pain, ignoring it can end up ruining your plans.  Derailment from your physical goals can also cause you to be less productive at work, less social, and more irritable. Addressing discomforts with a professional PT or sports therapist rather than letting them build up can keep you at your highest performance both within your sport and throughout the rest of your day-to-day life.

Sportsmed physical therapy can increase circulation and mobility, and offer pain-free activity.  It can also utilize more advanced strategies of improving your overall wellness and strength such as dry needling and cold laser therapy. These types of treatments cannot be performed at home and can help get you or your child get back on the field in less time than you were imagining.

Increased Circulation

Physical therapy for athletes can often include soft tissue mobilization, which is a form of massage using specifically designed tools to stimulate underlying tissues.  These underlying tissues can include muscles, nerves, and scar tissue. This stimulation increases circulation, allowing more effective exercising and stretching. Contrary to popular belief, this type of sports therapy is not only utilized after an injury but can help to prevent future injuries and keep your body in top shape before activity.

Increased Mobility

​One of the most popular types of sports therapy solutions includes therapeutic exercise. A physiotherapist can specifically design exercise routines for you, that when performed consistently, can be a form of medicine for the body.  If prescribed skillfully, athletic physical therapy exercises can be used to not only strengthen weak parts of the body but also increase overall mobility that can positively affect the way you perform. When exercises are used the right way, they can also re-train muscles, increase productivity, and boost your mood.

Spine and Sport Physical Therapy

​If your daily activity is stifled by a desk job or working on a computer during most of your day, you have probably experienced discomfort in your neck, shoulders, and back.  To alleviate that discomfort, spine and sport physical therapy is a form of relief for neck pain, back pain, as well as other types of pain.

A common solution to some of these issues is the use of spinal manipulation by an experienced physical therapist. This treatment involves the quick movement of spinal joints, readjusting them into a more comfortable position and releasing pressure between vertebrae. This physiological change often provides instant improvement in mobility and comfort.  Sport specific physiotherapy combined with therapeutic exercises can provide longer periods of pain-free activity.

There’s More . . .

One of the most advanced and noninvasive treatments in physical therapy for athletes today is shockwave therapy. This treatment works by introducing high energy sound waves into painful parts of the body. Shockwave therapy enhances blood circulation to regenerate damaged tissue.  Actual improvement can be seen with an ultrasound that shows larger blood vessels for more blood flow. Beneficial effects such as thinning of fascia tissue to eliminate tightness can be felt after only one or two treatments. This is an incredible strategy for kickstarting quick recovery for those that want to get back to their active lifestyle as soon as possible.

​The Best Part

​Sports physical therapy can help you increase mobility range, perform at your best consistently by reducing inflammation and pain, and decrease downtime because of pain or injury.

For those in the Orem, Utah area, looking for preventative therapy, strengthening exercises or quick recovery, Strong Life Physiotherapy offers all types of spine and sports physical therapy for athletes. We know what it's like to want to perform your best at every workout, practice, or game, and unforeseen injuries can really get in the way of that. Let our knowledgeable physical therapist help create a plan that's right for you. 
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Schedule your appointment today for any sort of sports or other physical therapy services in Orem, UT to help you stay healthy, active, and pain-free!

About the Author

AJ Ludlow is a Doctor of Physical Therapy who works with patients to give them a stronger life – free of lingering pain and chronic issues without having to turn to medication. After spending years studying physical therapy and exercise science, AJ worked for the Spinal Manipulation Institute in Texas and mastered advanced manipulation and needling techniques. Moving his practice to Utah, he now evaluates and treats a variety of orthopedic and musculoskeletal complaints -- holistically.

​Being certified in dry needling, spinal manipulation, and a provider of ASTYM techniques, AJ continues to seek specialized training to best serve his patients. AJ holds a Doctorate Degree in Physical Therapy from the University of Utah.