Football, baseball, basketball and other sports are cherished pastimes for many Americans. A 2019 Bureau of Labor Statistics report reveals that 95.2% of the people surveyed engaged in a leisure activity or sport on any given day. Such activities give people the opportunity to improve their physical fitness. They help us stay connected with our friends and family. These are just a few of the benefits playing sports can offer, but playing sports can also lead to a wide range of injuries. One way you can get beneficial sports injury rehabilitation is by visiting a physical therapy clinic near you.
Three benefits of going to a sports rehabilitation physical therapist near you
Physical therapists work with many amateur and professional athletes. Why? They have an encyclopedic knowledge of the musculoskeletal system, which helps them identify and treat sports injuries. These professionals also offer many sports injury rehabilitation techniques near you. You’ll even find that they can combine multiple techniques. Often, they do this so that your treatment plan can offer you the greatest possible number of benefits. A few of the benefits your sports rehabilitation plan may offer include:
- Cutting your pain — Being cut from a team because you’re injured is no fun. Getting help from a physical therapist for your sports injury may mean not having to deal with that. One reason is that these rehab pros can help cut your pain before it gets you cut. A hamstring injury study supports physical therapy’s effectiveness at reducing sports injury pain. The study found that a multimethod physical therapy plan helped participants cut their pain by up to nearly 55% in 10 weeks.
- Offering a swifter recovery — The recovery time for some injuries can drag on for months. Even if your recovery doesn’t actually take months, it might seem like it does. Often, this makes athletes restless, which can cause them to return to playing before they’re fully recovered. Giving in to this temptation can increase your risk of reinjury. However, physical therapists can help you resist the early return temptation by offering a swifter recovery. A study on hamstring injury rehab found that one PT program helped athletes return to playing in about 22 days.
- Helping you avoid long-term penalties — Untreated or poorly treated sports injuries can lead to health and fitness penalties later. Ankle sprains are a perfect example. This common sports injury can lead to an issue called chronic ankle instability (CAI). Athletes who develop CAI are far more likely to repeatedly re-sprain their ankle. They could also develop degenerative issues like osteoarthritis earlier in life. Sports rehabilitation physical therapists near you can help ensure that your injury heals well and fully. That way, your risk of long-term injury penalties is lower.
Need effective sports injury rehabilitation? Visit a Whatcom PT clinic near you
Looking for effective sports injury rehabilitation near you in northwestern Washington? Our Whatcom Physical Therapy team operates out of two locations near you. We can do a free screening to help you determine what injury you have and how physical therapy can help it. Our clinicians can also create a rehab plan that’s highly beneficial and personalized to you.
Contact our team today for more information about how we can help with your sports injury or to schedule your initial appointment.