Injured: Don't rush back!

Seems obvious doesn't it? Yet people still insist on returning to sport too early! I have blogged on this before and I feel that I will blog on this again, and again and again. So much so, that researchers are still getting funding to conduct research into this very topic! Grindem et al (2017) have conducted a study on returning too soon from ACL reconstruction, yet the message is definitely transferable to other injuries. The premise of the findings from the study is, just by delaying return to sport just by one month can reduce your injury re-occurrence rate by 84%! This pattern can continue month by month by, on average 51%! Returning too soon from injuries can increase your risk of injury by four fold even over as long as two years What can you do to reduce your risk of injury or whilst you are out injured? STRENGTH TRAINING! Muscle imbalance, ie: one leg stronger than the other or one set of muscles working harder than another in the leg, is a significant reason for recurrent injury. By conducting some single leg work and correcting any imbalances, concentrating on quadriceps and gluteals in particular, will significantly reduce any injury recurrence rate. Ideally, complete symmetry between both legs should be observed before returning to sports. What else to consider? Everyone is different. Now this doesn't mean that injury and returning too soon won't affect you! What this means is that everyone's healing times are different, including considering what health conditions you may have. Has surgical intervention been necessary? Has it been successful? What medication do you take? How old are you? What gender are you? What ethnicity are you? What genetic predisposition do you have? There is no optimal return to sport model!