What is Sports Therapy?

Sports Therapy is an aspect of healthcare that is specifically concerned with the prevention of injury and the rehabilitation of the patient back to optimum levels of functional, occupational and sports specific fitness, regardless of age and ability.
It utilises the principles of sport and exercise science incorporating physiological and pathological processes to prepare the participant for training, competition and where applicable, work.

What is a Sports Therapist?
A Sports Therapist is a qualified professional who has the knowledge, skills and ability to:

• Utilise sports and exercise principles to optimise performance, preparation and injury prevention programmes
• Provide the immediate care of injuries and basic life support in a recreational, training, occupational & competitive environment
• Assess, treat, rehabilitate and, where and if appropriate, refer on for specialist advice and intervention.
• Provide appropriate soft tissue interventions in a sport & exercise context
• Plan and implement appropriate rehabilitation and return to training/work programmes​

What are the most common treatment methods used by a Sports Therapist?

• Soft Tissue Therapy / Sports Massage: Targeting specific muscles (and other areas of soft tissue, such as ligaments) to relieve tension, increase blood flow and promote healing and recovery
• Joint Mobilisation & Manipulation: Hands on treatment of the bodies joints (where the bones meet), to check and then promote optimal movement range in the patient
• Functional Movement Testing & Analysis: Checking the patients posture and movement patterns looking for imbalances or disfunction which could cause injury
• Kinesiology Taping: To reduce pain and soreness, promote healing and to support muscles and joints using tape applied to the skin over specific muscles
• Electrotherapy: To reduce pain and repair tissues using an electrical current applied to the muscles through pads on the surface of the skin
• Rehabilitation Exercises: To allow the patient to strengthen or lengthen specific muscles which are weak or short through exercises self-applied regularly following the treatment session

How can Sports Therapy help me?
Sports Therapy can be for everyone! It is a HANDS ON therapy, unlike some others, and is holistic in that it is not focussed on only one part of the body (the spine, for example), or one specific treatment modality (mobilisation, for example).  Therefore it looks at and treats both the immediate problem (pain) and long term cause of the problem (often disfunction), using a number of types of treatments

By David Watson BSc. (Hons), Dip BmP