Our osteopaths can make sure you are working in tip-top condition and by working very closely with our exercise rehabilitation practitioner we can ensure that you are training correctly and that all the muscle groups are in balance and the joints are free to work to their best ability during your sporting activity, whether it’s golf, tennis or marathon running. We aim to give you an unfair advantage over your opposition!
But you don’t have to take part in strenuous sports to get problems. Normally your body should be reasonably well balanced with the muscles just working hard enough to support your weight and enough flexibility to be able to properly dissipate all the everyday stresses and strains. However muscles and joints may be injured by traumas such as falls, bumps or car crashes, which cause muscles, joints or ligaments to be damaged leading to painful inflammatory changes within these tissues. This can be effectively assessed and treated by our osteopaths to ensure a full recovery of the tissues.
There is good evidence for the efficiency of osteopathic treatment for shoulder pain, tennis elbow, knee pain (patella femoral) and planter fasciitis.*
More often nowadays the balance between skeleton and muscles can be affected by factors such as poor posture, inappropriate healing of tissues following trauma, and long periods of staying in one position in poorly designed furniture. This can lead to muscles having to work harder to help support the body, which in turn leads to undue fatigue and painful or injured muscles and joints.
We can accurately assess the balance of the skeleton and muscles and by using gentle treatment techniques can take away painful tension within the muscles and abnormal stresses acting on the ligaments surrounding the joints. The balance between these systems can thus be corrected and further problems can usually be kept at bay with some lifestyle/postural advice and a few daily exercises.
*Effectiveness of manual therapies: the UK evidence report. Chiropractic & Osteopathy 2010, 18:3 doi:10.1186/1746-1340-18-3 Article URL http://www.chiroandosteo.com/content/18/1/3
Our bodies are subjected to huge mechanical forces which the skeleton is designed to absorb. The muscular system also helps stabilise the whole structure by putting the skeleton under tension, in much the same way as the rigging of a ship. Any sporting activity tests this machinery to its limits.