Sports Injury Prevention

A good sports injury prevention program can limit your chances of injury, and improve your performance as well. If you play sports long enough, injury may occur. But there are steps you can take to reduce your risk, and enjoy a more stable and balanced body.

Prevention isn't just about preventing major injuries like ACL or rotator cuff tears - a good prevention program can eliminate overuse problems like patella femoral syndrome, tendonitis, bursitis, and general aches and pains.

The key to any good prevention program is maintaining normal mobility and good neuromuscular control. Strength, stability, balance, coordination, and improved performance will all come if you focus on these two areas.

For more information about sensorimotor control and mobility, and the role they play in normal function, visit the Rehabilitation Basics section of Sports Injury Rehab.

Mobility

Any good sports injury prevention program should contain exercises focused on improving and maintaining mobiilty. This includes both normal joint motion as well as muscle flexibility.

More than anything else, mobility restrictions will contribute to overuse injuries. This is because even subtle restrictions - ones you don't even realize are there - will cause your body to compensate and develop abnormal movement patterns. Over time the abnormal patterns will become habit, and can result in overstress of tissues.

In addition, performing strengthening exercises without good mobility can also lend itself to compensations.

Balance between good mobility and stability within the body is essential.

Neuromuscular Control

In sports injury prevention, neuromuscular control is focused on improving the stability of the joints through exercise. This involves focused attention on improving the afferent input and efferent output of the sensorimotor system.

Sound confusing? Let me explain...

Your muscles have 2 primary roles. One, they create movements through contractions. This is done consciously, and you control these activities. With practice, you can improve coordination, and learn new skills.

The second role, and one that is often overlooked, is stabilization. Muscles will contract together in groups to help stabilize a joint. This co-contraction contraction of two or more muscles at the same time to provide stabilization of a joint provides a stable base for movements to occur on, and also helps to keep your joints out of dangerous positions that could lead to injury.

The muscles of the core are considered some of the most important stabilizing muscles
in the body. The lower abdominals, hip intrinsics, lower back, and upper back muscles can all be considered part of the core, and their ability
to stabilize plays a vital role in most athletic functions.

Some muscles do more stabilizing, others do more moving. But all muscles will do at least some of both.

In sports injury prevention, stablization should be the primary focus. Improved stabilization will lead to more strength, better coordination, and improved performance.

Not to mention less chance for injury.

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