How Physical Therapy Can Minimize Injuries in Youth Sports
Are you worried about your child rolling their ankle on the playground or playing in your yard? Do you get confused about what you should or shouldn’t do to help minimize the risk of injuries in sports? Whether your child is dealing with a recent injury or you’re looking for guidance on how to avoid injuries, our physical therapists at Austin Physical Therapy can help!
As a parent, it’s normal to worry about your kids’ injuries or accidents. Kids are almost always on the move and can lose track of their surroundings or misunderstand the potential risks while playing! It’s hard not to worry about them getting injured.
Austin Physical Therapy wants to assist you in preventing as many injuries as possible, so we’ve put together our top 5 ways to prevent injury and help keep your child safe, healthy, and active.
Give us a call today to schedule an appointment!
Five ways to prevent injuries
The good news is that there are proven strategies that you can implement or adjust in your child’s life to keep them healthy and aid in preventing them from sustaining injuries!
1. Sleep: The most critical step you can take is to ensure your child gets adequate rest. Research shows that sleeping 6 hours (or less) increases the risk of injury by over 150%!
Sleeping 8-10 hours per night will significantly reduce the risk of injury and has countless other benefits for your child’s well-being.
2. Proper warm-up and cool-down methods: Children are often excited to get going and jump right into practice or the game. Establishing a good warm-up ensures the body is prepared physically and minimizes the likelihood of an injury.
More and more evidence has demonstrated that a proper cool-down plays an essential role in injury prevention as well. Teaching the fundamentals of cooling down properly helps minimize soreness after sports and sets the stage for your body to be ready the next day to practice or compete.
3. Diet and nutrition: Provide your child with a nutritious diet made up of healthy ingredients and avoid processed foods with high sugar content. Kids, in particular, need whole foods, meaning fruits and vegetables and lean proteins (i.e., chicken, turkey, and fish) to help their bodies get the right amount of nutrients to handle the demands of sports.
Make sure your little one stays hydrated with plenty of water. Sports drinks are not typically necessary but making sure they are getting enough water will help them during practices and games and recover faster afterward.
4. Encourage safe play and use the proper equipment: Even the most physically fit children will get into trouble if they disregard safe play guidelines. Letting your child play with friends outside organized sports leagues is essential for their physical, social, and mental development.
Appropriate use of helmets and other protective gear is key—be sure it fits your child well and is worn correctly. Children can experience overuse injuries, and often improper equipment leads to faulty techniques that leave your child susceptible to injuries.
Proper technique is another important consideration. For example, the wrong bat, racket, or golf club technique can quickly lead to shoulder strains, elbow tendonitis, back pain, and other problems which may require physical therapy.
Avoid specialization with your child. Too often, kids specialize in one sport to gain a competitive advantage, but research shows that this will usually result in more injuries and may inhibit development, limiting success in sports participation.
5. Prepare your child with physical therapy sessions and proper conditioning: Rehabilitation should start immediately following most injuries to ensure the fastest recovery possible. A physical therapist with pediatric rehab experience will thoroughly evaluate the athlete to determine the injury’s severity and identify any other weaknesses or limitations that may affect their recovery.
Addressing joint and tissue mobility restrictions and weaknesses or neuromuscular impairments will help reduce the risk of injury and improve your child’s overall function and sports performance.
Too often, children are taught to ignore or play through their pain only to end up with a more serious condition that prevents them from participating. Recognizing a possible sprain or strain is key to getting immediate care and resolution so that they may go back to play.
Teaching your child to address pain and dysfunction early is critical to preventing more serious injuries. At Austin Physical Therapy, our therapists would love to discuss how we can help your child!
What to expect at your pediatric physical therapy sessions
When it comes to your child’s recovery after an injury, it’s crucial to find someone who understands how different their bodies are from adults. The anatomic and physiologic differences between the adult and pediatric skeletal systems often result in injury and disease patterns specific to children.
Most kids seem to get better after mild injuries, but when their pain and/or injury lingers, it can be hard to figure out what to do next. At Austin Physical Therapy, our physical therapists are highly skilled at working with children dealing with sports injuries.
We will thoroughly evaluate the athlete to determine the injury’s severity and identify any other weaknesses or limitations that may affect the athlete’s recovery, stability, or strength. Your therapist will create a targeted, individualized plan of care for you to promote accelerated healing and help you return to your pre-injury abilities.
Next, we will incorporate balance and coordination exercises to stimulate the nervous system and help ensure you can run, cut, jump and land in the correct position to avoid an injury.
Request an appointment today!
We want to work with you and your child to make physical activity safe and fun. We are ready to help your child hit it out of the field, make that goal, or simply enjoy their playtime.
Give Austin Physical Therapy a call!