Sports physical therapy is a home run for softball players!
Physical Therapy for Softball Players
Performance Enhancement & Injury Prevention for Softball Players
Don’t let the term “soft” ball fool you. Softball players are anything but soft and to be successful at a game that requires speed, skill, power and teamwork, softball players dedicate hours to improving their performance. Working with a coach is a great way to build more skill and become a competitive player but having a great sports or orthopedic physical therapist on your team is another way to help boost performance and prevent and recover from injuries that may bench you unexpectedly.
STRIKING OUT AGAINST INJURIES
Despite best laid plans, softball players get injured sometimes. Contact injuries can happen when two players collide or contact one another unexpectedly. Non contact injuries can occur due to the dynamic and ballistic movements of players, the surface they play on or uncontrollable incidents like getting hit by a pitch. While a variety of injuries are possible when training, practicing or playing games, these are some of the most common softball-related injuries that physical therapists encounter:
Muscle contusions
Shoulder labral tears
Shoulder instability
Knee and ankle ligament injuries
Wrist sprains or tendonitis
Fractures
Concussions
Overuse injuries
When an injury strikes, it is important to take the right next steps. Resuming activity too early can worsen the injury and delay recovery while resting for too long can actually prolong recovery. How do you know when to rest completely, when to continue practice and play with modifications and when to return to normal levels of activity? The answer to this question is complicated but lucky for you, physical therapists are trained to advise you on this topic.
If you are playing softball regularly or competitively, it is a good idea to establish care with a physical therapist before you get injured. This allows you to reach out to a professional you trust as soon as you get injured so that you take the best actions right away. Additionally, you have someone available to help you address small aches and pains that can become full-blown, season-interrupting injuries if not addressed.
Each type of injury has a unique timeline for recovery and protocol for rehabilitation. The type of rehabilitation needed to return to low impact activity like most daily activities is quite different from that needed to prepare an athlete to return to high level athletics. Working with a physical therapist that understands softball will help them tailor your rehabilitation plan of care to support return to sport and help you prevent recurrence of injury in the future.
PREPARING THE BODY FOR SOFTBALL
Softball, like all sports, imposes unique physical demands on the body. Being in “good shape” is not necessarily enough to prepare the body to withstand the stresses it experiences during practice, game play and training. Failing to prepare the body adequately increases the risk of injury significantly and negatively impacts performance. Physical therapists use their understanding of the unique physiological and anatomical demands of a sport like softball to train and rehabilitate their athletes. Athlete screens can be performed by physical therapists to identify impairments in muscle performance, functional movements, joint mobility, and more, that may increase an athlete's risk of injury..
When a therapist observes that an athlete lacks strength in their rotator cuff, stability around their knee joints or stiffness in their spine, for example, they can create a plan to address these impairments. Interventions and exercises prescribed by a PT may look different depending on whether the athlete is in pre-season, off-season or in season but are aimed at optimizing the player’s muscle performance and movement capabilities to limit injury risk. By taking this proactive step you can get ahead of potential injuries and you may even see your performance improve.
Softball requires many motions and components of muscle performance. Let’s take a look at the components of fitness and movement that are important for softball players to maximize performance and decrease injury risk:
Strength: Muscle strength refers to the amount of force a muscle can develop, the amount of force or pressure it can withstand or the amount it can move. Whole body strength allows players to run, jump, sprint and so forth but it also helps increase the resilience of muscles against injury.
Power: Power is a component of muscle performance in which strength or muscle force is developed rapidly in order to perform ballistic movements like throwing or pitching a ball or sprinting between bases. A player that is strong but slow will be at a disadvantage in many situations.
Flexibility: Appropriate muscle flexibility is essential for players to move through their full ranges of motion without straining muscles. Lack of appropriate muscle flexibility can increase the risk of injuries.
Joint Mobility: Joint mobility is important for the execution of movements requiring more extreme ranges of motions like pitching a ball.
Joint Stability: The ability to control joint position while rapidly changing directions or during unexpected contact from another player, for example, is important to help prevent sprains and strains.
Proprioception and Coordination: Joint proprioception and neuromuscular coordination are important components of the skills required to be a great player and to minimize injury risk.
Muscle Endurance: Strong muscles with poor endurance will have difficulty performing at a high level for the duration of practice or game play and injury risk increases as muscles fatigue.
CHOOSE EVOLVE PHYSICAL THERAPY
At Evolve PT we want to get you strong and healthy so that you can get back to playing the game you love. We apply an individualized approach to athlete assessment and rehabilitation and our goals are to help you become the best player you can be. If you are a softball player recovering from an injury or wondering if there are steps you can take to prevent one in the future, call Evolve PT today.
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About EvolveNY-
Brooklyn's Premier Holistic Physical Therapy Clinics- There’s physical therapy, there’s training, and then there’s EVOLVE. We use the science of biomechanics merged with fitness to help our patients get better and stay better!
First we evaluate, then we heal, then we strengthen our clients so they can reach their goals, feel better, and live happier lives. We do so by utilizing a range of core techniques and specialized treatments to reduce pain, improve mobility, enhance physical strength and deal with the underlying issues, not just the pain itself.
Multiple Brooklyn Physical Therapy Locations!
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