
Assessment
Sports injuries happen at any age and level of sport and recreational activity. Common types of sporting injuries include:
- Muscle tears, strains or contusions (e.g. hamstring tear, corked thigh)
- Ligament sprains or joint dislocation (e.g. MCL sprain, ankle sprain, shoulder dislocation)
- Tendon injuries (Achilles tendinopathy, tennis elbow)
- Injuries to bone including fractures and stress fractures, bony bruising, growth related injuries. (e.g. fractured tibia, tibial stress fracture, severs disease)
- Injuries specific to repeated overload in sport. (Muscle imbalances or technique or equipment issues)
At Kooyong Physiotherapy Centre we start with an assessment to identify what structures are injured and the likely causes to the injury and lay out the plan for recovery.

Treatment
Initial treatment of sporting injuries involves techniques to maximise your body's natural repair process, reduced inflammation and swelling. As soon as it appropriate for your injury we will direct you back to movement exercises to aid healing and minimise strength losses.
Treating your injury in the early stage of a sporting injury may involve:
- Ice, compression or bracing
- Soft tissue techniques
- Dry Needling
- Taping and bracing
- Early movement exercises to specifically aid repair
As your recovery progresses exercise techniques become a bigger focus this will involve:
- Tailoring specific exercises to address muscle imbalances, weaknesses, joint stiffness, and poor motor patterns, pain or to assist the body’s natural healing process.
- Education to understand your condition and have a graded return to sport plan.

Rehabilitation
There are many factors that can contribute to the length of recovery from a sporting injury. (e.g. Nature of the injury, structures that were injured, your age and conditioning etc.) This is why a supervised rehabilitation process back to sport is important to prevent re-injury. Even with fairly minor injuries the time out of sport to heal may leave you weaker and deconditioned. It is important that full rehabilitation addresses the exercises that are relevant to your sporting level requirements.
This stage may involve:
- Clinical Pilates
- Strength or resistance training
- Stretching
- Plyometric
- Graduated running/cycling/swimming program
- Sports specific exercises