Why is it important to choose a sport-specific health professional?
Understand why seeking treatment from an Exercise Physiologist, Massage Therapist, Sports Psych or Physio with experience in your sport may be one of the best decisions you make.
Did you know that injury is the number on thing that holds athletes back from performance?
An injury can have a greater impact than the training itself. If we can’t train effectively due to injury how can we possibly perform at our best?
Not only that, as an athlete it can be incredibly disheartening and frustrating to develop an injury. Worst case scenario they can prevent us from achieving our goals and participating in the activities we love.
A sport-specific health professional’s unique knowledge of your sport places them at an advantage to help you. They have the power to improve your performance. They can prevent injury by identifying deficits in your strength and mobility, before you or your coach notice.
In this blog we dive into the why it is so important to have sports specific practitioners in your corner.
1. Find Your Edge
Health Care Providers aren’t just about preventing injuries. When you find people who understand your sport they can be utilised to improve performance. An exercise physiologist or remedial massage therapist or any other health practitioner that has a thorough understanding of a sport will understand:
- The biomechanics, and skills
- Tactics,
- Mindset
- and type of training needed to excel.
Through assessment and testing they can use this knowledge to identify areas to focus on to improve your performance.
Additionally, because they have an understanding of your sport they can suggest how to incorporate any additional exercises into your regular training. Therefore you aren’t having to take as much extra time out of your week to fit all of your exercises in.
2. Performance Comes Through Consistency
One of the key benefits of having a sport-specific health professional is their ability to minimise your time away from training or competition. These practitioners will have a better understanding of sport-specific movement patterns that you need to stay injury-free and perform. This knowledge can help them identify potential risk factors and deficits that, if left unaddressed, that may cause injury. More often than not it is far easier and faster to treat a niggle or a ‘risk factor’, than it is to treat an injury.
Consequently, if an injury does occur you may be set back weeks, if not months in your training, rather than a session or two.
It’s a fact that often performance comes through consistency of training. The more consistent you are in training, and the more time you stay uninjured, the better able you are to perfect technique, work on your fitness and improve in areas that will help you excel and do your best.
3. A Collaborative Approach with Your Coaches.
Coaches rely heavily on the information provided by your practitioners. A sports-specific practitioner will understand what coaches need to know. They can provide coaches with actionable feedback to help you improve, identify when they may need to modify your training if and injury occurs.
Often technical aspects of your sport need attention away from training because there is a strength deficit or a mobility factor that is holding you back. Yet until a coach understands that right now your body isn’t physically enabling you to do what they have asked, it can seem like you are not trying to make a change.
Having health practitioners who can chat to coaches and also help them identify when it is an athlete’s body holding them back, rather than the athletes level of motivation or enthusiasm to listen, can help prevent frustration and conflict. In this way the coach can collaborate with you and your health team to create a plan to work on these areas in order for you to improve your technique and performance.
4. A Speedy Recovery
If an injury does occur having an exercise physiologist or other sport specific health care provider in your corner can help get you back training faster.
Keys to a speedy recovery:
- Early and accurate diagnosis,
- A sound treatment plan
- And a sport-specific rehabilitation and return to sport program,
As you recover your health practitioners can offer advice to help modify your training. By modifying your training rather than stopping completely you can decrease your chances of going backwards and losing all of the hard work you have put in to improve.
Additionally, if they identify that you will improve faster with the help of another healthcare professional they can recommend other sports-specific practitioners. This can improve the continuity of your care and help to speed up your recovery.
Referrals to other sports specific providers can also help because they too understand the stress of a sports-related injury. They also understand the importance of returning you back to training as quickly as possible.
How to Find a Sports-Specific Health Professional?
Most state-level sporting associations, for instance Queensland Academy of Sport (QAS) or associations such as Queensland Rowing or Swimming Australia will have a list of exercise physiologists, physios, remedial massage therapists and other sports providers that they recommend. This can be a great place to start.
Asking a coach, parent or team member for recommendations can be helpful. Yet it is still crucial to check if they have sports specific knowledge. They don’t always know who to send you to see. They may send you to Jo, who’s been their physio since they were a kid. Yet that does not mean they have that all important understanding about your sport.
If you would like help in identifying who to see be it an exercise physiologist, remedial massage therapist, physio, sports psychologist or sports doctor, please give us a call. We offer this as a free service. Because we are passionate about quality and collaborative care. We want to help connect you with the best providers to prevent injury and perform at your best.
Call 07 3891 7629 or email hello@urbanwell.com.au
Exercise Physiologist
Our team at our East Brisbane location has Exercise Physiologists with specific knowledge across a variety of sports. To identify who best to see chat to us or visit our bio page.
Remedial Massage
Just Knead It, our sister company specialises in sports massage, treating athletes from the weekend warrior to olympians. Call us to know who best to see for a particular sport or check out their bios online.
Other Practitioners
Please give us a call and we can help you find someone in your area who knows your sport. We offer this as a free service.