Running, cycling, mountain biking, triathlon: If you’re into any one of these endurance sports, then you know that race season is in full swing here in the Valley. Whether you’re the type of athlete who likes to push for better times and better placing, or you’re just looking forward to crossing that finish line, then you may be interested in learning how sports physical therapy can help you be stronger, faster, and smarter about your training and racing.
We talked with Rachel Keith, PT, DPT, ATC, about how PT can benefit the competitive athlete in you. Rachel is an athlete herself who specializes in helping endurance athletes avoid and overcome injury.
When should an athlete seek out physical therapy?
If you’re one of those athletes that doesn’t consider PT until you have a full-blown and painful injury, or until you have a nagging pain that just keeps nagging and is prohibiting your progress, then listen up: The time to see a PT is, well, anytime you’d like your body to move, function and perform better.
“It’s a really great idea to go in and have a physical therapist assess your movement,” Rachel says. “We do what we call a movement screen, and the therapist has the opportunity to say, ‘Oh, you know, you’re a little weak on this side. Or, hey your hip is a little bit tighter on the left versus the right. Getting in prior to your pain starting can help people discover and uncover how their body moves and where some of these underlying dysfunctions exist.”
Rachel says that oftentimes physical therapy can be the key to preventing the traumatic injury and body breakdown that result from repetitive movement and heavy training.
What if you feel something tweak or you feel pain, during a training session or afterward? What’s the best course of action? Rachel recommends watching it for about 48 hours. If the problem persists and doesn’t seem to be improving, then make an effort to get into PT as soon as you can. “People that are athletic and active demand a lot of their bodies, so it’s a great idea to get in and make sure that a PT is figuring out what’s going on if your discomfort or pain isn’t resolving within a couple of days. It’s important to do this before things get full-fledged, and you’re no longer running or you can no longer jump.”
If you do experience an injury, prepare for your visit with your physical therapist by recalling what activities or movement patterns you did in the past 24 to 48 hours, and make note if anything was different. “Did you massively increase your mileage? Did you change running shoes? Did you do an agility or speed workout that was new? Bring that kind of information to your evaluation with a therapist. It’s really valuable,” Rachel says.
Beyond treating an injury, what are the benefits of physical therapy to an athlete?
For starters, a PT is able to help you put together the pieces of your physical puzzle in a way that will help you meet all of the demands of your daily life—not just those related to your training. Your therapist will want to understand your training regimen and athletic goals, but also other aspects of your lifestyle and responsibilities (work, family, what you do for fun, and so on), along with your medical history (past surgeries, injuries, chronic illnesses, for example).
In this way, she can match her expertise and experience as a movement specialist with all aspects of your mind, body, and spirit—“all these areas of your life story and what makes you, you” Rachel says—in order to develop a successful plan for optimal movement.
This holistic, whole person approach includes evaluating how your body moves as a unit by putting you through the paces of different movement patterns, from various sitting and standing positions to sports-specific movements, where relevant. She says that all this will be done in light of where your pain levels are, and with the goal of “piecing together where you might have some breakdowns in what we call your kinetic chain”—all the interrelated joints, muscles, and body parts and how they work together.
From there, the PT will develop a plan that may include manual therapies to improve joint motion and tissue function, interventions such as dry needling to help tissues heal and release, specific exercises, and if necessary, rest.
“We have this one life and this one health and this one opportunity, and you can really do a disservice to yourself by not understanding the potential that your body has,” Rachel says. “Really, the benefit of PT comes from learning more about yourself and learning about where you’re broken down or not functioning at the highest level, and knowing what you have to own and take care of and work on. This gives you a higher level of ability to achieve maximum performance.”
Work with us to make sure you’re as race-ready as you can possibly be. Schedule your complimentary movement screening at Spooner Physical Therapy today.