How can Physios help Gymnasts?
Gymnastics - the sport that requires it all. Demanding so much from the body, gymnastics requires a high degree of strength, stability, flexibility, balance and aerial awareness. It tests the body in so many ways. In order to learn and maintain the required skills, gymnasts must keep up intense training loads. While gymnasts are brilliantly fit, the level of strength and flexibility they require as well as the time spent training mean gymnasts can be at risk of injury.
Gymnastics requires high-impact lower and upper limb weight-bearing, end-range movements, aerial body awareness and high velocity landings. Due to these high demands, overuse and traumatic injuries are common to:
-Wrists
-Achilles tendons and ankles
-Shoulders
-Knees,
-Hips, and
-the lower back
At The Studio we have a special interest in assisting gymnasts with injury rehabilitation and prevention.
So how can physiotherapy help?
Injury rehabilitation: Assessment, treatment and exercise prescription for gymnastics-based injuries. We want to help gymnasts get back to their beloved training ASAP!
Screening gymnasts: We screen athletes for possible risk factors which may lead to injury and time away from training/competing. We work with athlete coaches to develop ways to enhance performance and prevent injury recurrence. Screening helps us create individually-tailored programs to meet a gymnast's needs.
Flexibility programs: Repetitive and frequent training routines may lead to soft tissue adaptations. Gymnasts spend a lot of time upside down on their hands, so it is no wonder they tend to become tight in certain shoulder muscles. This may result in muscle imbalances that lead to injury. Appropriate flexibility maintenance programs are important in injury prevention.
Strength and conditioning programs: Muscle imbalances tend to occur due to gymnastic-specific skills which may lead to possible injury. We create conditioning programs with the goal of strengthening those forgotten areas to assist in preventing injury and creating balance.
Static and dynamic stability regimes: Being an extremely dynamic sport, gymnastics requires high velocity jumping and landing. Injuries may occur due to these large forces moving through the body. Both static and dynamic stability and landing work are important to master these skills, to reduce the risk of injury and to improve performance.
Gymnastics is such a fantastic and rewarding sport to be a part of. Here at The Studio we believe injury prevention is key, so come on in and have a chat with one of our physiotherapists. We want to help gymnasts keeping flipping and tumbling at their best! Our physiotherapist Caitlin has a special interest in gymnastics related injuries having previously been a high performing competitive gymnast.
