How to heal 6 common athletic injuries – and prevent them in the first place

Working out or playing a sport is great for your long-term health, but along the way, most of us suffer an ache or pain of some kind. If you’re dealing with an injury, Matt DiBona, an outpatient physical therapist at the Falmouth Hospital Outpatient Clinic, has some advice.

“A lot of people have it in their head that it’s no pain, no gain,” said DiBona. “What they need to do is allow their body to heal itself, by eliminating everything they can that’s irritating that tissue, and adding in good nutrition, rest and ice.”

DiBona offered a physical therapist’s view of six common sports injuries.

Sprains and Strains

“The only difference between sprains and strains is what tissue is injured,” he said. “If it’s a sprain, it’s going to be a ligament, which is the tissue that connects bone to bone. If you twist or move a joint too far, you’re going to get a sprain. Most of us have sprained our ankle, and it’s just from twisting it too far.”

A strain is just from straining muscle tissue, either lifting too much, or stretching or overworking muscle tissue to the point where it's injured, DiBona said. It is usually a little easier to recover from. Many people can do some massage and heat, and the pain will go away.

But a sprain “needs a little extra help,” he said.

“You need to rest it, which is hard for a lot of people to do, especially if it’s your ankle or your knee. You’re going to stress that ligament every time you take a step. You need to put on a knee brace or an ankle brace or you’re never going to heal yourself.”

Tendonitis

Tendonitis is inflammation of your tendon, which connects your muscles to your bones, according to DiBona.

“If you have tennis elbow or golfer’s elbow, that’s tendonitis. A lot of people will get it in their Achilles tendon, and that’s just from that tendon doing too much work, being under too much load and not having enough opportunity to recover from it,” he said.

For tendonitis, you should rest it, as much as possible, he said. “You want to do treatments that increase blood flow to it, because blood is going to bring in oxygen and nutrients and remove waste products. Those are all things that we need for our body to be able to fix itself.”

Inflammation is a natural part of your body starting to heal, he said. But too much inflammation is going to slow things down and cause too much pain for you to function, so you need to rest to give your body a chance to catch up.

Ice is ideal for relieving inflammation, DiBona said.

“You get two benefits from ice. You get the benefit from when the ice is on, where it pushes out that inflammation. When you take the ice off, your body sends in new blood, and you get new oxygen and new nutrients,” he said.

People will often ice for hours, but it’s more beneficial to ice for 20 or 30 minutes, then take it off, move around, get blood flowing, and then do the cycle again, he recommended.

Bursitis

The bursa are little fluid-filled sacs that reduce friction, usually between tendons and bones or between fascia and bones.

“They’re there so that things can glide on each other, but sometimes they get put under too much stress and too much friction, and then they become inflamed,” DiBona said. “If you hit your elbow and it blows up like a grapefruit, a lot of times it’s the bursa that has inflamed. It becomes painful, and it’s sensitive to the touch. It might feel like tendonitis or a fracture.”

Bursitis can affect the hip, shoulder and knee. “Oftentimes I’m giving people good news that it’s only a bursitis. It’s just swelling and pain that has to go away and not something they actually have to heal from. Rest and ice will take care of it,” he said.

Bone Stress Injuries

Bone stress injuries are more common among new athletes or at the beginning of a sports season, according to DiBona. “I was that kid who always got shin splints. You’ll get it at the beginning of the season. It can happen from running on uneven surfaces, but also if you’re on AstroTurf or a firmer surface, which can be more jarring,” he said.

The way you will know it is a bone injury is by where it is, he said. “If you test somebody’s tendons and ligaments and those don’t hurt, and if it’s mainly hurting with weight bearing and then doesn't hurt when you’re off of it, that’s a good indication,” he explained.

People recovering from stress fractures can still get some exercise by training in a pool or in another source of water, DiBona said, because it takes the pressure off of your bones.

Fractures

Physical therapy can play a part in fracture healing once a patient is out of their cast and the bone has healed sufficiently, he said. If they have lost mobility or strength, then a physical therapist can help them gain that back.

“Usually, the spot where the healing happened comes back stronger, especially if you’re younger,” DiBona said. As we age, we don’t heal as fast.

Concussion

The most important thing that you need to do for a concussion is rest, according to DiBona. “The best thing you can do if you are a parent or coach is not to rush someone back too soon,” he said. The brain needs to heal and there is no way to help that externally other than putting the person in an environment that makes it easier to heal, he said. That means lower light, lower stimulation, lower noise, and sometimes that means taking a break from work or school.

“It’s another invisible injury, so afterwards, you don’t know whether somebody is recovered or not just by looking at them. You can look at their balance because the vestibular systems in your brain communicate with your eyes,” he said. “So, you can look at somebody’s eye movements, their coordination, their balance. You need to make sure all those functions are working properly before going back to a sport.”

Prevention

The stronger and more flexible you are, the less likely you’re going to get some sort of soft tissue injury when trying something athletic, DiBona said. If you’re going into an activity cold and stiff, you’re more likely to suffer a tear or a sprain or a strain.

“The best thing somebody can do if they’re about to work out or compete is a good warmup. Even better than stretching would be functional movements like doing some squats, jumping jacks and heel raises. You can do some skipping to get blood flow to the muscles and tendons so it’s not so jarring when you go and sprint for the first time or move quickly.”