Sports Therapy & Sports Massage
You don't have to be an elite athlete to benefit from Sports Therapy, it is for everyone from office workers, gym goers to competitive athletes.
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Whether an eldery person rolls their ankle when walking or a rugby player rolls their ankle during a game it's likely that both will have injured their ankle ligaments to some degree.
Sports therapists understand that each individual's lifestyle and situation are different, which is why we listen and provide personalised treatment and rehabilitation programs to support your return back to optimal health, function and specific fitness levels (e.g. walking or rugby training/competition).
No matter your age, ability, fitness level or chosen sport/activity we can all use a helping hand to improve our movement, health and performance. Acute and chronic injuries as well as pain can severely affect these as our body attempts to heal and keep going with the demands we place upon it. This can lead to muscular imbalances, compensations, muscle tightness, poor flexibility, joint stiffness and poor motor control (to name a few).
What we do
Sports therapists use their knowledge and skills to diagnose and treat musculoskeletal pain and injuries (joints, bones, ligaments, tendons and muscles), especially those related to sport and exercise. They also advise on injury prevention and support rehabilitation, using a range of treatment methods such as:
- Hands on manual therapy (e.g. trigger point therapy, frictioning, stretching & flexibility therapy, proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF), soft tissue release (STR))
- Peripheral joint mobilisations and spinal mobilisations (Maitlands concepts)
- Postural/Gait analysis
- Movement Strategies
- Sports Massage
- Myofascial Release
- Pain Management
- Taping and strapping (e.g. kinesiotaping)
The goal is to assist your body’s own healing mechanisms, improve joint mobility, relieve muscle tension and to enhance the blood and nerve supply to tissues.
What to expect during your Sports Therapy appointment
- A holistic approach, taking into account your body as a whole.
- A focus on understanding your history of pain, the mechanism of injury and how the demands of your sport/lifestyle impact your body biomechanically and emotionally.
- A full musculoskeletal assessment of your issue/injury.
- Appropriate advice and specific evidence based treatment for your injury.
- Creation of a unique rehabilitation and conditioning program, to assist you in reaching realistic goals in your return to ‘normal’ activities.
- An explanation of our findings, logic and rationale to ensure you have the understanding and tools to confidently participate in home rehabilitation and pain management in between any follow-up treatments.
Conditions we treat
- Generalised aches and pains
- Ligament and joint Sprains
- Muscle and Tendon Strains and tears
- Running Injuries (e.g. Plantar Fasciitis, Shin Splints, Achilles tendinopathies)
- Biomechanical irregularities, movement issues, gait issues and imbalances
- Iliotibial Band Syndrome (ITB)
- Tennis/Golfers Elbow (Lateral/Medial Epicondylitis)
- Sciatica
- Pre and Post surgery Rehabilitation
- Injury rehabilitation
- Rotator Cuff Injuries
- Back & neck pain
- Hip injuries
- Shoulder, Elbow & Hand injuries
- Ankle, Knee and Foot injuries
- Joint pain
Sports Massage
Like Sports Therapy you don't have to be a sports person to benefit from massage. Sports massage is beneficial to anyone, including office workers, people in physically demanding jobs and anyone experiencing muscular tightness or soreness due to high levels of stress in their lives.
Sports and remedial massage therapy is a form of manual therapy that involves a blend of tissue compression, stretching, and toning. It’s a great tool to help maintain peak bodily performance, support the healing of injuries and combat the stresses placed on your body during daily life and training.
Benefits of Massage:
- Helps address niggling injuries and muscular soreness from sporting or other injuries.
- Emotional and psychological stress relief for the mind.
- Alleviates physical stress.
- Complements other therapies, treatment and rehabilitation.
- Can assist with a variety of complaints including sleep disorders, anxiety and digestive issues.
- Promotes and improves muscle recovery, flexibility, muscular activation, physical fitness and mental awareness.
- Reduces rehabilitation times.
- Enhances the healing process (e.g. reduces swelling, bruising, cramping and spasms).
- Enhances performance, health and well-being.
- Improves range of motion, flexibility and muscle tone.
Sports massage is performed by our Sports therapist who will individually tailor each treatment to you and provide advice and home exercises where appropriate to assist you in reducing the future build up of muscle tension and tightness.
Sports massage can be booked as a stand alone treatment. So Whether you are a professional athlete, a once a week jogger, or an office worker we’re here to help you address your muscular aches and pains or to treat yourself to a nice and relaxing massage to unwind physically and mentally.
More information
Our Sports therapists are highly qualified and fully insured.
Sports Therapy is a distinct occupational title that applies to a clearly defined scope of practice. Furthermore, since 1990, The Society of Sports Therapists has continually striven to ensure that its members are at the forefront of this rapidly increasing profession; academically, professionally, and practically.
Using the principles of sport and exercise science, they incorporate physiological and pathological processes to make sure participants are training and competing safely and provide an immediate response when sport and exercise related injuries occur.
More about 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.
A Sports Therapist is a healthcare 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 & competitive environment
- assess, treat and, where appropriate, refer on for specialist advice and intervention
- provide appropriate sport and remedial massage in a sport & exercise context
- plan and implement appropriate rehabilitation programmes
Society of Sports Therapists
The spectrum of expertise that a Member of The Society of Sports Therapists must possess is built within five key areas of competency related to injury and illness in the sport and exercise environment. These are:
- Prevention
- Recognition & evaluation
- Management, treatment & referral
- Rehabilitation
- Education & professional practice issues
Within each of these areas Sports Therapists and specifically those at Graduate level, are trained and educated in principles that have sound practical and evidence based philosophies with solid sport and exercise science foundations.
Sports Therapists, are capable and proficient in applying the necessary rehabilitation principles, to enable their patients to achieve the optimum levels of recovery, that their injury or disability will allow. As such, the journey from injury to a return to activities can be facilitated by professionals who have the knowledge, skills and science based principles to meet the needs of a clearly defined patient group. More importantly, Sports Therapists are, and should be, an integral part of the Sports Medicine family, complementing and reinforcing the excellent skills and knowledge also being provided by colleagues and other professions.
Sports Therapy is a distinct occupational title that applies to a clearly defined scope of practice. Furthermore, since 1990, The Society of Sports Therapists has continually striven to ensure that its members are at the forefront of this rapidly increasing profession; academically, professionally, and practically.
The Society of Sports Therapists continues to ensure that both its Members and the profession are respected for the distinct scope of practice and science based foundations that are inherent and integral to Sports Therapists and Sports Therapy.
Some Key Responsibilities of Sports Therapists
A sports therapist may be involved in any or all of the following:
- conducting an assessment of the fitness level of players, athletes or participants and advising on exercises prior to an event or fixture;
- testing joints for ease and range of movement, pain and dysfunction;
- mentally and physically preparing players, athletes and participants before a competition and using strapping, taping and massage techniques where necessary;
- providing emergency aid in a sport and exercise environment;
- examining and assessing injuries and determining whether the athlete or participant can continue safely with the event or activity;
- treating and mobilising injuries to alleviate pain;
- rehabilitating injuries by using manual therapy techniques, apparatus and electrotherapy;
- designing and monitoring rehabilitation programmes appropriate to the injury and/or sport and level;
- deciding whether athletes, players or participants need extra treatments and coordinating referrals to other practitioners;
- advising players or athletes on diet and nutrition (when therapists are appropriately trained);
- working alone or with coaches, trainers and/or fitness advisers to implement exercise, conditioning, core stability and injury prevention programmes, so that athletes, players or participants reach and maintain peak performance;
- liaising with other healthcare professionals in the sports sector and in mainstream medicine.