Sports Therapists assess, treat & rehab muscular & sports related injuries.
Who does a sports therapist help?
The simple answer is a Sports Therapist can help nearly everyone. Sports Therapists aim to have clients back to 100% in the shortest possible time, while preventing the injury reoccuring & limiting the risk of other problems.
For instance, think of an AFL player. When they hurt themselves, their club & the player wants to be back out playing as quickly as possible. However, they don’t want the player to go out and re-injure themselves or even worse have another injury occur due to factors caused by the injury they have just had. Sports Therapists help the player back to 100% as quickly as possible – getting them back out playing. At the same time they put measures in place to help prevent further or other injuries.
Do you think that’s something that should be applied to nearly every injury? I sure do. This is why we apply this same concept if you have a back injury, headaches or an actual sports injury.
I haven’t heard of many people titled a “Sports Therapist”. What is it?
Sports Therapy is relatively new to Australia compared to other modalities such as physio, chiro, or osteo. It was first introduced into Australia in 2009 of which Rapid Recovery’s founder was in the graduating class.
Sports Therapy is based of what is known as an athletic therapist in the U.S.A. Sport in America is huge. Athletic therapists hold the role the physics do with sporting organisations here. For example, an NBA team will have an athletic trainer/ therapist instead of a physiotherapist.
For instance, physio’s as a whole have a very broad scope of practice. Sports Therapists or athletic trainers have much more of a focus on helping muscoloskeletal injuries in clinic and while working with sporting teams or organisations.
As a result, our Sports Therapist, Cameron has worked with many elite, pro and international teams across a variety of different sports. He now 100% focuses on helping people (anyone not just the sporty) in clinic.
You can read more about him in the about us section of this site.
How is Sports Therapy treatment structured?
Sports Therapy sessions are broken into 3 sections; assessment, treatment & rehabilitation. This combination allows us to treat many injuries & syndromes with a high success rate.
Assessment
Here we look at your problem as well as take a thorough history to try to pinpoint the cause. Furthermore, could or should this have potentially even be prevented? The answer to these questions guides the rest of our treatment.
This is done through a range of muscle & orthopaedic (injury specific) tests, your injury is carefully evaluated. We work out if anything is affecting the way your joints & muscles move & work. If things potentially aren’t functioning as well as they should & set out a treatment plan to get you feeling the way you should.
Treatment
Sports Therapy treatment consists mostly of remedial massage. We also add in some stretching and sometimes some joint mobilisations. A big factor in the success of Rapid Recovery is that we don’t just treat the site of the injury. Generally speaking, we at a minimum treat from a joint below to a joint above. Why?
People with injuries tend to move differently. Moving in different ways can place physical stress on structures not made or used to it. Your body doesn’t like change!
This change often results in tightness and sometimes pain in other areas. If we’re getting you back to 100% we need to treat this as well. I know many other therapies can focus on just the site of the injury and nowhere else. Often this is due to a lack of time because of smaller appointment lengths.
My honest feeling is that, to do your job 100%, treatment of this tightness/ dysfunction must be included in your treatment.
Rehabilitation
What is the point of treating an injury & leaving it weak and susceptible to re-injury? This is why the assessment was so important. We now get to go about stopping what caused this injury, to cause the same thing or a similar injury.
A Sports Therapist prescribes corrective exercises to either improve strength or provide more range of motion to joints and muscles. We also prescribe balance type exercises which are extremely effective in preventing re-injury or reoccurrence of an issue, but also helpful in preventing other injuries.
The best way to think of it is these exercises help to improve joint and muscular function. Moving differently can place physical stress on structures not made for it, proper function avoids this. Your pain levels stay down, you should recover faster, have less niggles and ultimately perform better!
Can I claim private health insurance?
Yes. As remedial massage makes up the bulk of these sessions, you can claim your session through your private health fund as remedial massage (providing that you have that cover).
Who are the sports therapists at Rapid Recovery?
At this stage Cameron is our only sports therapist. Often for people needing sports therapy appointments they will see him first, build a treatment plan. Then see a remedial massage therapist for a few sessions before seeing a sports therapist again for re-evaluation.
Sports therapists perform remedial massage, but we have other therapists that this is there specialty. We want you to get the absolute most of of your time at Rapid Recovery which is why under normal circumstances this is how we set out treatment plans up.
Finally, our Sports Therapist is very busy. If you need treatment click the link below & book now with Cameron.