About Sports Injuries: How, Type of Pain and What to Do

Sports injuries will happen while playing sports or exercising. Fear of this happening should NEVER be an excuse not to “get” yourself moving.

Movement, in whatever way, has proven to be extremely valuable to your overall health condition. Get going, but keep the following in your mind.

The short list of usual causes of the sport type injury are:

  • accidents
  • poor training practices
  • failing to adequately “warm up”
  • use of improper gear/equipment
  • lack of condition for the particular sport

The most common sports injuries are:

The two types of sports injuries are acute and chronic. Acute injuries occur suddenly during play or exercise. How you know you’ve experience an acute injury is by experiencing:

  • swelling
  • sudden & severe pain
  • painful weight bearing
  • very tender to the touch
  • restrictive joint movement
  • weakness and/or the injury is visibly obvious

In contrast, how chronic injuries tend to happen is after repetitive sports play or exercise for a prolonged time period, and then you experience pain with continuation of the sport play or exercise, or you experience a dull ache/swelling after you stop.

What you should do when you first feel pain is to stop. Next, follow the RICE method to:

  • relieve pain
  • speed healing
  • reduce swelling

(Unless, of course, you have a visibly obvious injury that is in need immediate medical repair.)

Here are the four steps to follow right after injury occurs and continue for at least the next 48 hours:

  • Rest ~ immobilize and keep weight bearing to injured area at a minimum
  • Ice ~ 20 minutes, four to eight times a day
  • Compression ~ even pressure on injured area to minimize swelling
  • Elevation ~ injured area at a level above your heart to minimize swelling

Protect the area from further injury by using a brace or support during rehabilitation wherever possible.

You may need medical attention if you have:

  • swelling
  • numbness
  • severe pain
  • the area feels abnormally unstable

If in doubt, have it checked out!

Anti-inflammatory drugs, such as aspirin, ibuprofen, ketoprofen, or naproxen sodium, are good compliments to the RICE swelling and pain reduction method.

And the final step to sports injury “what to do” program is rehabilitation. Moving the injured area helps it to heal, so the sooner the better. What this means is to gently start moving it through a range of motions, next is stretching, and finally add weight.

The time to start playing again is when you can stretch the injured area without pain, swelling, or stiffness.

Never lose sight of the fact that all injuries need time to heal. Rest helps that process, so keep a proper balance between rest and rehabilitation.

Other common therapies that help with the healing process include:

An MP3 is a great source of mental entertainment if what you do for sport/exercise is a solo type activity.

Filed under: Sports Injury

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