Ready to Get Back on the Field? Follow These Sports Medicine Tips for a Speedy Recovery

Athletes who play sports do it because they love their game. If you are an athlete, whether amateur or professional, what you have chosen to do is important to you. One of the most unfortunate things that can happen to you is to become injured, forcing you off the court or field.

Although you can have a speedy recovery after an injury, specific physical preparedness is required for any sport, which means you should be completely healed, rehabilitated, and have resumed strength and conditioning programs before playing again. So, it may take some time before you can safely return to playing.

Here are a few tips to get you back into the thick of the action sooner.

Seek Prompt Treatment

Sports injuries need prompt treatment, even mild injuries need to be evaluated by a doctor because you want to limit the damage and get the correct treatment. As an athlete, you need your bones, joints, and soft tissues in good health to keep playing your sport. Nobody understands this more than a sports medicine doctor, who provides a quick diagnosis and treatment of all sports injuries. Seeking early treatment gets you on the path to recovery sooner.

Be Committed to Your Rehabilitation

When recovering from an injury, rest your body and give it time to heal. After a period of rest and once the pain and swelling have subsided, rehabilitation can begin. Being committed and dedicated to your rehabilitation program can accelerate recovery time. Initially, you will be meeting with a physical therapist, but other times, it will be up to you to maintain your exercise program. Remember that the goal of rehabilitation is to get back your strength, motion, and function, as well as restore balance, reflex control, and endurance.

The sooner these are restored, the sooner you can start with strength and conditioning exercises and sports-specific exercises, and restore optimal ability to play your sport.

Keep Positive

Being sidelined by an injury can cause anxiety and depression in just about anyone, but never more so than if you are an athlete. If you keep yourself mentally healthy by maintaining a positive, can-do attitude, a mental health issue is one less thing you will need to worry about. A positive attitude motivates you to do your rehabilitation exercises and advance your recovery.

Sports Injury Treatment in St. Peters & O’Fallon, MO

At Advanced Bone & Joint, we have a multidisciplinary team that will work closely with you to help you have a speedy recovery from injury and give you the support you need. We have two fellowship-trained sports medicine physicians — Dr. Brandon Larkin and Dr. Matthew P. Melander.  We are a team of friendly, caring, and compassionate providers. We not only treat athletes, but also weekend warriors, and those who have only recently become active.

Our clinics are modern facilities that allow us to quickly and effectively diagnose and treat injuries. We also accept walk-in patients who need urgent orthopedic care.

Let us help you return to your sport sooner and better than ever. To schedule an appointment with a sports medicine doctor, call (636) 229-4222 or use our online appointment request form.