Sports have become a mainstream part of the American society. We know famous athletes, athletics are a popular hobby and we watch popular sport games.
The competitive nature of sports is believed to help children learn how to compete in a healthy manner. The social skills that are developed and the life lessons that are learned in sports are invaluable to many who participate.
Another reality of sports is injury. Sports injuries happen all the time.
The range of injuries is vast. There are injuries that are just nuisances while other injuries can be fatal.
To prevent injury make sure to take the time and stretch before you participate. It may not look cool and no one else may be stretching, but it is important.
If your muscles are extremely tight as you start to play, you are much more likely to hurt a muscle. When the muscles are stretched and have lots of blood flowing to them they can endure a lot more.
Your body will be twisting and turning in ways that your body is not necessarily used to. Making sure that your muscles are well equipped to handle the twists and turns is necessary.
No matter how much preparation people do to play sports, there are always times that someone gets injured. When someone is injured there are a few different acronyms to help you remember what to do after that.
The first acronym is P.R.I.C.E.R. The P stands for protect. You need to make sure and protect the injured part of your body from further injury.
You need to remove yourself from the game setting to make sure that you do not hurt yourself further. If you keep on playing you will run the risk of making a mild injury a serious injury.
The R stands for rest. Your muscle will need time to heal.
If you continue to strain and exercise the muscle it will never heal because the energy within the muscle will be concentrated on moving and working rather than healing. It is best if you are able to not use the injured area at all.
The I stands for ice. You must ice the injured area for 15 minutes at a time.
It used to be believed that you should ice an area for as long as possible, but it has been found now that this can be very mal-beneficial.
If you ice the injured area for more than fifteen minutes it is possible that you will incur nerve damage. So, the recommended remedy now is to ice the injured area for fifteen minutes and then heat it for fifteen minutes.
The C stands for compression. By keeping the muscles compressed you will avoid much of the inflammation that can occur.
The inflammation makes it much harder for the muscle to heal itself. If you can reduce inflammation you will have a much quicker recovery.
You should also always keep the injured are elevated. By keeping the injury above your heart you will not have a dramatic increase of blood flow to the injured area.
When the blood flow dramatically increases to an injury it will increase the chances of inflammation. The throbbing sensation will also decrease if you keep the injury above your heart.
The R stands for referral. When you have a serious injury you will need to get a referral from a professional.
The professional will be able to advise you as to what exactly you need to do to optimize the healing process. If you try to figure it all out on your own you may make the injury worse.
Many times injuries will be too hard to understand from just looking at the surface. Instead of using invasive methods to figure out what is going on inside of you doctors will use a musculoskeletal imaging device, an x-ray or an MRI.
These tools will give the doctor a picture of the inside of your body. They will have been trained in understanding what pictures mean and what different problems look like.
Having this done is very beneficial and if your doctor recommends that you have one of these pictures taken it is most beneficial to do so. There may be a need to have a picture taken by more than one of the methods.
Knowing your limitations and understanding what your body is trying to communicate to you are very important skills in sports. Although people are injured everyday in sports people all over the world join together to play the sports that influence communities, countries and individuals.
Author Resource:-
Jack R. Landry is an health authority who has been in the industry since 1991. He specializes in Musculoskeletal research and orthopedic MRI.
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