Physical Therapy

All athletes should participate in therapy. Therapy strengthens the muscles in a way that can't be done by lifting. Lifting gets muscles big and strong to look bigger. Therapy helps train your muscles and ligaments to land correctly, to cut correctly, run correctly etc. Therapy can help prevent injuries. How a large injury happens is from smaller injuries before the big one happens. A sprained ankle can lead to a broken ankle. Hip pain can lead to back injuries or knee injuries. By going to therapy these large injuries can be prevented.

Therapy is also highly recommended after an injury has occurred. If there is no therapy after an injury than that muscle or ligament will not get stronger. It will stay weak and will not be ready to play a sport again. Therapy is the opposite of a chiropractor. Chiropractors crack the area on the body to adjust it. This works sometimes but by massaging and strengthening will overall be the better route. You want to have your muscles learn the right way to move. This will help your body as you get older too. Your ligaments won't be worn out when you are at an age where it is hard to walk or get up from the couch.

Therapy can be very expensive though, especially if you don’t have great insurance on things like that. If you cannot afford physical therapy, you doctor can give you a list of the same sort of exercises that the therapist will give you, except you will have to do them on your own. This is very hard for some people because they will need to be reminded to do their exercises otherwise they will forget and they won’t get stronger or heal correctly.

Have you ever heard the saying, "A habit will come to you when the repetition is repeated for two weeks"? Now in therapy that saying is adjusted. By repeating an exercise like one legged squats it will take longer than two weeks for your body to naturally bend that way. In therapy, the athlete is training themselves a new way to do things. In knee bending, you have to make sure your knee is trained to bend straight. You don't want your knee going towards the inside. If anything you would rather have the knee bend towards outside of the body. If the knee is constantly bending towards the inside it will more likely end up in a torn ACL or another torn ligament.

Professional athletes and college athletes are participating in therapy, three times a week if not every day. It is strengthening your own body parts in a way that will make you more successful and better at a sport. I would recommend in therapy on your knees, due to more knee injuries occurring recently.

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