Musculoskeletal injuries, which are nothing but injuries to muscles, tendons, ligaments, bones, and joints prevent you from enjoying a physically active life. You can neither attend your workout sessions nor take part in your favorite sporting event if you are injured.
Whether you have got an auto injury or a sports injury, its consequences on your health are almost same. And you can’t live a normal life until you fully recover from it. If you talk particularly about sports injuries both professional athletes and weekend worriers try their level best to avoid them but that can’t happen always. No matter how carefully you play a game, sometimes even an incorrect walking and running technique can lead to serious injuries.
It means, even though you try hard to prevent injuries you can’t always be successful in achieving your goal. So, what’s next? Well, you have to be ready to fight your injuries strongly to get back to your favorite activities.
If you have injured any part of your body, here is how to speed up your recovery process.
Choose Physical Therapy Over Painkillers
Seeking the right treatment is the only key to quick recovery. Underestimating the importance of taking an appropriate treatment can take it longer for you to return to your normal life. If you are someone, who always rely on painkillers to subside their ache, then perhaps you need to change your attitude. Although painkillers can offer quick relief to you, they can’t treat the actual cause of your pain. Therefore, it’s important to find a better treatment to heal your injury. You can seek a drug-free technique like physical therapy to heal your injury. It offers amazing results within a very short period of time.
According to STAR Physical Therapy, a highly popular PT clinic in Folsom, LA, “Physical Therapy is the art and science of healing physical problems. It is designed to help you perform daily activities with no discomfort, making you feel as comfortable as possible while preventing permanent disability.”
When you meet your physical therapist for the first time they discuss your signs and symptoms and check your medical history to find out the exact problem. They also examine your range of motion to identify the seriousness of your problem. Based on that, they design a care plan for you. Your care plan includes the kind of exercises you need to perform to heal your injured muscles, joint or bones etc.
Stick To a Healthy Workout Routine
Apart from consulting a physical therapist, you should also make an effort to strengthen your fitness level on your own. For that, you have to design an effective workout program to suit your needs.
You can take the help of a fitness trainer or watch videos on YouTube to figure out how to perform exercises effectively. If you perform an exercise incorrectly it can increase your risk of further injuries. So make sure you learn the right way to perform them.
Focus on improving your core muscles and the muscles on your back to minimize the risk of injuries or recovering from them. Incorporate exercises in your fitness program that can strengthen the pelvic floor muscles, rectus abdominis, and transversus abdominis. Strong core muscles help in avoiding the stress on your spine, which reduces the chances of injuries. Besides, it also helps in speeding up the recovery process.
Focus on both flexibility and strength building exercises.
Avoid High-Intensity Physical Activities
Whether you have injured your ankle, knee, low back, shoulder or hip, stay away from high-intensity activities until you fully recover. If you have the habit of performing high-intensity exercises, avoid them for a couple of days, otherwise, you will end-up injuring your body further.
Take Proper Rest
The first thing that you should do to recover from your injury is to take sufficient rest. When you keep moving your injured shoulder or knee, you will take a lot longer to recover. However, if you take a significant amount of rest, you will see a world of difference in your health. It will not only help in reducing the pain but will also minimize swelling.
Increase The Intake of Healthy Food
Consuming healthy food is very important for strengthening your body, so up the intake of fresh fruits and veggies. For example, if you have injured your bone then you should up the intake of calcium-rich foods such as poppy seeds, chia seeds, cheese, soya beans, tofu, and yogurt. In addition to that, you should also increase the consumption of foods that are a rich source of vitamin D, because they play a crucial role in absorbing calcium.
However, if you have received a muscle injury then stick to foods like oranges, apples, beets, beef, eggs, brown rice, and spinach.
Yoga
Yoga is also very good both your physical and mental health, so don’t hesitate to make it a part of your life. It helps in strengthening your awareness of your body, which is highly essential for recovering from an injury. Yoga poses are also very good for strengthening your muscles, ligaments, and tendons.
Swimming
Swimming is a very helpful exercise. It offers a wide range of benefits and most important among them is it helps in enhancing your flexibility, without putting much pressure on your joints. It also offers tremendous relaxation to your body. It’s a great exercise for those who are overweight. Swimming not only helps in shedding those extra pounds but also helps in increasing the blood flow in your body, which makes it easier to supply the necessary nutrients to injured muscles and tissues.
In addition to that, you can also try tai chi to recover quickly from your injury.
