Sports Injury Rehabilitation: What to expect?
Dr. Park at his first brazilian jiu-jitsu tournament.
By Andy Park DC,
Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization (DNS) Specialist.
Sports Injury Rehabilitation: What to expect?
How long does it take to heal from a strain or sprain?
So you find yourself in the middle of competing. It could be at a game, a meet, a tournament, a recreational pickup game, and you feel the unfortunate but familiar feeling of a movement that did not feel quite right with a sharp pain following. Maybe there is tension as well and if it is in your leg, perhaps it is now hard to bear weight on that side and now you are walking with a limp. You my friend have just experienced a sports injury. Sports injuries can present as different types of injuries but the vast majority of them can be either categorized into a strain or a sprain.
What is the Difference Between a Muscle Strain and Sprain?
A common questions we get at the office is what is the difference between a strain and a sprain? To put it simply a strain is a tear of muscle fiber and a sprain is damage to a ligament. With many sports injuries it is not one or the other but rather some combination of both.
How Long Does a Strain Take to Heal?
So you have found yourself in the position of having experienced a muscle strain. How long until it heals and I can get back on the court / mat / field? The healing time for a muscle strain can vary depending on the severity of the injury. Muscle strains are typically classified into three grades:
Grade I (mild): This involves a slight stretch or tear of a few muscle fibers. The area may be tender and painful, but it maintains relatively normal strength. Healing time is usually two to three weeks.
Grade II (moderate): This involves a greater number of injured fibers and more severe muscle pain and tenderness. There might also be bruising, swelling, and a noticeable loss in strength. Healing time for a Grade II strain can range from three weeks to two months, depending on the muscle involved and the care received.
Grade III (severe): This is a complete tear of the muscle or muscle-tendon unit, often making it impossible to use the affected muscle. This type of strain is serious and may require surgical repair followed by a significant period of rehabilitation. Recovery can take several months.
How Long Does it Take for a Sprain to Heal?
The healing time for a ligament sprain varies significantly depending on the severity of the injury and which ligament is affected. Similar to muscle strains, ligament sprains are also classified into three grades:
Grade I (mild): This involves slight stretching and microscopic tearing of the ligament fibers. There is mild pain, swelling, and tenderness. The joint remains stable and functional. Healing time is usually between 2 to 6 weeks.
Grade II (moderate): This involves partial tearing of the ligament, leading to moderate pain, swelling, and bruising. There is a noticeable decrease in the function of the joint, and it may feel loose when moved. Healing time for a Grade II sprain can range from 6 to 8 weeks, sometimes longer depending on the care and rehabilitation efforts.
Grade III (severe): This is a complete tear of the ligament, causing significant pain, swelling, and bruising. The joint is unstable and often unable to bear weight. A Grade III sprain is a serious injury and may require several months to heal. In some cases, particularly if the injury leads to joint instability, surgical intervention may be necessary to repair the torn ligament, followed by an extended period of rehabilitation.
It's important to note that these are general guidelines, and individual recovery times can vary based on the specific muscle involved, the extent of the injury, the treatment methods used, and the individual's overall health and age. Another thing to consider is a strain or sprain is rarely just a strain or sprain but your bodys nervous system is also involved. When your Central Nervous System detects there is an injury, strain, or sprain it will often tighten up around the area as a defense mechanism to protect that area from further injury. As you get into the rehabilitation process, you will see that it involves more than just doing things to encourage tissue healing, but will maybe even more importantly involve retraining your body to safely re-incorporate the injured area back in with the rest of your body.
What Does Rehabilitating my injury look like?
While I cannot definitively speak for all physical medicine provider, physical therapists, and chiropractors I can speak to the integrated approach we take here at our office.
Manage pain: regardless of what is injured we want to do our best to reduce pain and discomfort as much as possible in the initial days of care. This may seem obvious but this is mainly aimed at facilitating more advanced stages of rehabilitation such as corrective exercises as well other more aggressive interventions and therapies that one might not be ready for on day one if things are extremely painful.
Stabilize: Many health care providers will often mobilize before stabilizing but at our office and based on our specific approach we have observed that if stability is achieved, oftentimes range of motion will also gradually and spontaneously return. If it does not, that is the point where we will add in external passive therapies, mobilizations, or static stretches vs dynamic. (if you want to know more about stretching sign up to get our stretching guide here - it is the 3rd link down) We generally will start off by using an approach called Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization as our foundation for rehabilitation (article on this coming up soon) and then move on to more capacity building exercises.
Build: At this point we have mostly if not totally rehabilitated your injury, so what is next? We need to BUILD capacity. We start shifting into practicing your typical gym or conditioning exercises at a slightly reduced weight or intensity. Our assumption is that your baseline function has returned so we are working to improve strength, speed, and coordination. The reduction of load compared to pre injury when you start back up is due to the fact that you probably have not been doing exercises to the same extent while you were injured. We want to work our way back up to the pre injury load and potentially to greater heights. With our new movement patterns we have learned through rehabilitation and now are able to apply to our other movements there is no reason why you should not be able to perform at an even higher level than where you started.
We hope you found this article to be enlightening! If you’re an athlete or an active individual who is also experiencing an injury or want to improve your performance, then don’t wait any longer. Give us a call (773-296-2766) or text us at (773-692-0670) to book your FREE Discovery call or Movement Assessment today!
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