Sports medicine is a subspecialty of orthopedics, but it draws on the expertise of a variety of other health professionals to provide a comprehensive approach to personal health and fitness. As the name implies, sports medicine specialists focus on athletic performance, but the level of athleticism is carefully individualized to help people meet individual goals, whether the goal is to improve overall health and fitness or to compete in professional or Olympic sports. Specific types of sports medicine interventions can be defined according to individual goals and needs, as described below.

Health and fitness

Sports medicine specialists can be helpful to anyone who desires an improvement in overall health and fitness. Maybe a person has been inactive for a period of time and wants to improve muscle tone or aerobic capacity. A sports medicine physician can work with individuals to meet specific goals through a comprehensive physical examination and development of an exercise prescription. Progress is monitored according to the goals established for a particular individual and any problems encountered can be resolved through an examination of exercise techniques and other activities. The goal is to improve the individual’s level of health and fitness without injury or undue stress on body organs. As indicated, a person may wish to change goals at various stages of the treatment plan – for example, to lose weight, to begin a more active or athletic exercise program, or to prepare for an athletic event.

Sports preparation

Every sport and athletic activity places different demands on the body, and sports medicine specialists have studied these demands in great detail. When a specific level of performance in a particular sport is the desired goal, a sports medicine specialist can assist you in achieving your goals. Often, the program will begin with seemingly unrelated exercises, but the total treatment plan is designed to improve your capabilities gradually, with such factors as muscle strength, flexibility, and endurance increased at a safe rate until the whole body is ready for the target sport. The term “cross-training” is part of the vocabulary of sports medicine, because a too-specific preparation for athletics can increase the risk of injury.

Sports performance

Many of us have seen examples of the way in which professional or Olympic athletes train, using computers and high-tech electronics to document an athlete’s body movements during the performance of a sport. Sports medicine specialists have advanced this area of study to a fine art and many athletes have improved their performance substantially through such performance evaluations. Today these evaluations are not limited to the professional or Olympic arenas and many serious amateur athletes take advantage of a biomechanical study to improve their performance in a favorite sport. These studies are especially helpful when a person has been prone to a particular injury in the past and wants to eliminate the problem body movement or athletic technique.

Sports injury treatment

Certain sports tend to result in particular types of injuries, and sports medicine specialists can provide the most current and effective methods of treatment for these injuries. A comprehensive treatment plan is designed based on the type and severity of injury and takes into consideration the activity that caused the injury so effective steps toward rehabilitation and a return to the sport can begin at the most appropriate time.

Sports rehabilitation

Many of us would do well to imitate the approach to rehabilitation that we see among professional athletes. We hear terms like “disabled list,” “injured reserve,” and “rehab training” in news stories about the status of a local or national sports figure. We know too that sports teams have too much invested in an athlete to allow him or her to return to the sport too early and risk further injury. Sports rehabilitation allows us to remember that we have a lot invested in ourselves too and that improper rehabilitation following a sports injury can place us at higher risk of slowed healing or additional injury. Rehabilitation is a comprehensive treatment program that often begins while active treatment is still being administered. It is carefully designed as a progressive program to help the individual not only recover from an injury but also to reduce the risk of additional injury. The outcome is often described as “I’ve never felt better,” or, “I feel stronger now than I did before hurting myself.” This is the goal of sports rehabilitation – more than just a healing process, it is designed to overcome the limitation that may have contributed to the injury.

For more information on sports medicine or to schedule an appointment with one of our specialists, please call 1-888-563-KNEE(5633).