Injury Prevention

Physical Therapy for the Injured Athlete: Why Body Symmetry Is So Important

Body symmetry is important because poor balance of such things as muscle tightness, stretch, bone length, pelvic rotation, and scapular positioning increases risk of injury and can hurt performance. 

Physical Therapy: More than Just Treating Injuries

Physical therapy is far more than about treating injuries. The real trick is preventing an injury from happening again. Here are some things that you might not know about physical therapy.

Stretching Reduces Risk of Shoulder Injuries In Young Pitchers

A big difference between the forward range of motion of the throwing and non-throwing shoulder increases injury risk.  Here is a simple test to identify such difference and a stretching exercise to keep the shoulder balanced.

Achilles Tendinitis: Prevention Tips

Advice from a physical therapist on ways to reduce the risk of Achilles tendon injuries while increasing the strength, power, and dynamic capabilities of the foot and ankle.

Ankle Sprains: Reducing Risk of Posterior Tibialis Tendonitis

A very common, but often overlooked problem with lower leg injuries is that a secondary injury can occur, such as posterior tibialis tendonitis, a painful inflammation and injury along the lower inside part of the leg, ankle, and arch of the foot. 

Softball Pitchers: Injury Prevention Strategies

As is true in most sports these days, softball pitchers are training - or over-training - more than ever, and more and more are playing the sports all year long without a break.  Softball teams may carry only a couple of pitchers, which sometimes results in a pitcher throwing over 1,000 pitches during a weekend tournament!  While there hasn't been an epidemic of rotator cuff injuries, other problems to the shoulder and elbow have surfaced with increased play.

Too Many Curve Balls in Youth Baseball?

Youth baseball programs - Little League in particular -  have put new limits in place in recent years to reduce the number of pitches thrown per game, week, and for what team, prompting, indeed requiring, parents and coaches to get out "the clicker" to count pitches. With pitch limits in place, the attention seems to have turned to another important element in the pitching injury equation: the type of pitches being thrown.

Injury Risk Is Product of Athlete's Age, Degree of Sport Specialization, Training Intensity

Sports injuries are the result of three factors: age, degree of sport specialization, and training intensity:

Stretching Improves Flexibility, Provides Foundation for Athletic Success

A lot has been written about the subject of stretching and flexibility in sports. Studies abound on the effects of flexibility on muscular strength, joint motion, and injury prevention, but the picture seems to become more muddled with every passing day, with even the conventional wisdom that static stretching improves flexibility over resistance training recently called into question. But the fact remains: stretching improves flexibility, a foundation for athletic success.

Stretching Exercises Maintain Shoulder Flexibility, Reduce Risk of Rotator Cuff, Other Injuries

Stretching exercises maintains good shoulder flexibility and reduce the risk of rotator cuff and other injuries to baseball pitchers and other throwing athletes (football quarterbacks, javelin throwers).  Without a stretching program, athletes tend to develop muscle imbalances over the course of a season, exposing the athlete to increased risk of injury.
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