For any athlete, suffering from knee pain can be dreadful. Taking a backseat while recovering with time off from sports and the strength and skills building, can be difficult. When they return to their sport, however, most athletes believe they will be able to perform at the same level. If they let their injury properly recover, about 90 to 95% of injured football playlers are able to fully recover to pre-injury status according to specialists. It is important to take the following necessary steps to keep healthy and get back to your performance level and without pain in order to avoid re-injuring the already suffering knee. Keep in mind, that patience is vital, and it can take 12 to 18 months (or longer) to recover from an injury. Below, we at Fyzical Dizziness and Fall Prevention Centers would like to share a few tips to help you on your recovery.
Efficient Bracing
Make sure you have enough knee support before diving into any type of activity. You want to sill keep your knee aligned and have the right support to allow you turn, twist, jump or bend, your ligaments and muscles, and there is a variety of braces and supportive sleeves that can fit your specific needs. The kind of brace to wear depends on the activity and extent of knee injury. To apply compression to the knee, a simple stabilized knee support is more ideal at this stage.
Swelling Reduction
Keep swelling to a minimum and blood flow moving after any workout it's important to continue your ice therapy and compression. This decreases the rate of fatigue of your muscle as it also improves your performance.
Broaden Range of Motion
\To strengthen the muscles and ligaments, you have stayed off of your knee and have slowly started progression exercises. Your range of motion may be weak, but at this stage you're able to put weight on the injured knee. To strengthen the injured knee and open your range of motion, try body weight squats, hamstring curls, step ups, lunges, double leg press, bridges, hip abduction, hip extension and calf raises.
Varied Planes
In all sorts of directions, playing sports cause you twist, turn, jump and move where simply walking only has walking or running forward. You need to be comfortable moving in various planes to protect the knee. Gradually progress to a faster pace after a couple weeks of practice, run or jog sideways and backwards. To work in various planes, try lateral lunges or backward lunges, side hops and bear crawls.
Include Plyometrics
To help increase strength, speed and balance, plyometric drills like box jumps, hopping, or agility drills. Start slow and work your way up and continue plyometric training, even when your back in your sports program.
Return to Sport Specific Training Gradually
In order to program to get your body used to moving like that again, slowly bring sport-specific drills into your workout program. Start slow, repeat the pattern of running a few minutes, then walking. Before testing out the larger one for box jumps, start with a small box. Before adding on weights-and progress from there, stick to use bodyweight.
Stretch
After any workout program, don’t forget to stretch. To protect the injury from weakening over time and recover faster for your muscles.
Sports Rehabilitation
Call Fyzical Dizziness and Fall Prevention Centers and let our certified specialists help you with your sport-related knee injury.