The Most Challenging Injuries To Recover From

It’s important to remember that there is some subjectivity to this list. You shouldn’t feel despair because you’re dealing with an injury on this list, and you shouldn’t assume your rehab will be a breeze because your specific injury isn’t listed here. Injuries are always specific to the athlete, so it’s important you connect with a professional and really commit to a recommended treatment plan. With that said, here’s a look at some injuries that can prove more challenging for a recovering athlete.

Achilles Tears – Derived from the only injury able to fell the mighty warrior Achilles, a tear to the largest and strongest tendon in the body will set athletes back a year or more in their recovery. Even professional athletes will find it hard to return to the highest level of performance 9-12 months after an Achilles tear, and oftentimes they just aren’t quite as explosive on the field as they were prior to their injury. Surgery and months of physical therapy are standard for any athlete looking to make a strong recovery after an Achilles tear.

Concussion – Although our management of concussions has improved greatly on the professional and amateur level over the last few decades, a concussion can still be very difficult to fully put behind you. Everyone responds differently to head trauma, and if you don’t fully recover from your concussion, you may experience lingering symptoms like fatigue, headaches, sensitivity to light and dizziness, all of which can greatly affect you on the field. There’s no such thing as a “minor” concussion, and even though you may not end up missing a lot of time due to your head injury, don’t take a concussion lightly.

Major Ligament Tears – You can also expect to be staring down the barrel of a months-long rehabilitation if you tear a major ligament in your body. A UCL injury in your elbow or an ACL tear in your knee will likely require surgery and months of physical therapy to get back close to game shape. You can make a strong recovery after these injuries, but it’s going to take a lot of time and effort.

Hamstring Injuries – One of the most common injuries that lingers because of improper treatment is a hamstring tear. Moderate to severe hamstring tears require months of protection and gradual strengthening to get back to full health, and if you push yourself too hard too soon, you can suffer a setback. Because the hamstring endures a lot of stress when running and moving during athletics, it remains susceptible to re-injury if the original injury isn’t carefully managed.

Ankle Sprains – An ankle sprain isn’t usually as devastating as an Achilles injury, but like a hamstring injury, an ankle sprain can linger for months or longer if you don’t seek out the right course of treatment. Without the right care, your supportive ankle ligaments can remain weakened, leaving you at risk for what’s known as chronic ankle instability. This condition means your ankle ligaments are unable to provide a normal level of stability to your ankle joint, leaving you at a heightened risk for recurrent sprains. Many athletes have seen their seasons end because of a poorly managed minor ankle sprain, so don’t let the same happen to you.

If you need help overcoming a foot or ankle injury so that you can get back to athletics, connect with Dr. Silverman and his team!

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Young Athlete Foot Care

If you are a young athlete or you’re the parent of a young athlete, keep these tips in mind if you want to keep them strong and injury-free during the sports season.

1. Cross Training – As we’ve written about on the blog before, single sport specialization increases your risk of developing repetitive stress injuries because only the same muscle groups are worked. This can lead to a disparity in strength between different areas of your body, and injuries can result. If you’re only participating in one sport, be sure to work in some cross training so that you strengthen a variety of muscles groups. Or, pick up a different sport in the offseason!

2. Build Up Your Conditioning – You’re probably at your best sports fitness level at the end of the season, and you need to realize that it’s going to take a while to get back to game-level conditioning. Begin running or light practice sessions before the first official practice or game so that your body is ready for the rigors of athletic competition. Don’t go into tryouts or your first practice without having conditioned during the offseason.

3. Shoe Choice – The most fashionable athletic shoe is rarely the option that best contours to your feet, so skip the high-priced sponsored shoes and make sure you find a pair that fits your feet well. Be sure you try on the pair in the store so you know how they fit before you buy. Also, break them in a bit before wearing them to practice or a game so you know how they’ll respond to athletic movements.

4. Preventing Athlete’s Foot – Athlete’s foot is a fungal infection that thrives in warm, damp locations, like a foot that’s inside a sweaty sock. Pack extra socks to change into if your feet really sweat, and avoid going barefoot in locker rooms or other places where there’s plenty of germ contamination.

5. Playing Hurt Vs. Playing Injured – Finally, you should realize the difference between playing hurt and playing injured. If you roll your ankle and have some minor discomfort, you can probably keep playing through the pain. However, if you hear a pop or have severe pain in your hamstring, calf or Achilles, take yourself out of the game. There will be plenty more games to play in, and if you let a small problem snowball into a big injury because you tried to play through the injury, you could end up missing a lot more time. Parents, coaches and trainers all need to play an active role in managing player injuries so they don’t get worse.

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It’s not surprising that someone who suffers a severe ankle sprain would be more likely to suffer future ankle sprains, because the ankle ligaments would be damaged from the original injury, even after some healing has taken place. However, the new study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine suggests that injuries to different areas of the body can increase an athlete’s likelihood of suffering a lower-body injury down the road.

Future Leg Injuries

For the study, researchers looked at data from 12 previous studies. What they found was that many types of injuries, including head trauma and concussions, were associated with a higher likelihood of a future lower limb injury.

“When we are injured we generally only focus on the body part that is being rehabilitated, yet it is just as important to keep the non-injured parts of your body healthy and injury free,” said lead study author Liam Toohey of La Trobe University in Bundoora, Australia, and the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra.

However, this focused rehabilitation on one area of the body can lead to reduced fitness levels or a lack of conditioning in other muscle groups, which can lead to subsequent injury when they try to return to athletics.

“During rehabilitation, it is common for the injured body site to be strengthened and conditioned, but often other body sites are not trained as much as they were before the injury,” Toohey added. “So when an athlete is ready to return to full training and competition, the other areas of their body may not be as conditioned as they need (to be) to withstand the demands of the sport – where they may then go on to sustain an injury at a different site.”

For example, researchers noted that athletes who has suffered an ACL injury were more than twice as likely to suffer a future hamstring injury than the average person. This is because the hamstring on the same leg may not be as conditioned as the hamstring on the non-injured leg, so when an athlete is trying to run at full speed, the less-developed hamstring is at risk for injury.

Similar associations were also seen after looking at the data. Muscle injuries to the hamstrings, quadriceps, adductors and calves were tied to a greater likelihood of a future muscle injuries in a different part of the leg. Concussions and spine injuries were also linked to an increased risk of future leg injuries.

The findings suggest that injured athletes and doctors should be aware of how certain injuries could predispose their lower body to future injuries, and move forward with appropriate rehabilitation plans after an initial injury. So if you’ve suffered an injury during athletic activity and want to talk about the best ways to reduce your likelihood of a future lower-body injury, reach out to Dr. Silverman today.

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According to a recent study, sport specialization may increase your child’s risk of injury compared to playing multiple sports. The reason behind this is because multiple sports require different training regimens and movements during athletic activity. These differing movements work a variety of muscle groups and work to strengthen more areas of your body. Single sport athletes can find themselves overdeveloping certain muscles while ignoring others, and this discrepancy between muscle groups can leave an athlete predisposed to injury.

Develop An Athlete

We always say that parents and coaches should work on “developing the athlete, not an injury.” Imagine that you had 100 days to help your child train for an unknown athletic event. You’d probably work on a variety of things, like running, jumping, throwing, catching, swimming and kicking. You prepare this way because you don’t know what to expect, so you want to be ready for everything.

However, there’s another benefit of doing all these different training techniques. Each activity works different muscle groups, and they actually develop different skills. Kicking a soccer ball also develops coordination, swimming builds muscles in the arms and legs, and throwing improves hand eye coordination. This leaves the athlete more well-rounded and with stronger muscle groups throughout their body than someone who just focused on mastering one specific activity.

What’s more, specializing in one sport is associated with a higher likelihood of a lower body injury than kids who only play in one sport. Overuse is the number one cause of athlete injury, and kids who are repeatedly calling on the same muscle groups are more likely to suffer a lower body injury. Of course, this is assuming that they were to play the same amount of games. For example, a child who only plays 15 soccer games a year is less likely to be injured than a child who plays 15 soccer games, 15 baseball games and 15 basketball game a year, but an athlete who plays 40 soccer games a year is more likely to be injured than someone who plays 20 soccer games and 20 tennis matches a year.

Also, researchers noted that there is a magic number of games high school athletes should limit themselves to each year if they want to avoid an injury. Sports researchers found that athletes who played more than 60 games per year were 85 percent more likely to suffer a lower body injury than kids who didn’t reach this threshold.

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Those two factors may seem oxymoronic if the end game is to earn a scholarship in a specific sport. One would think the best way to earn a scholarship in basketball is to focus solely on the sport of basketball and to train year-round. The new study suggests that children may benefit from playing different sports throughout the year and by varying their training regimens.

Athlete Study

The study, led by Dr. Joel S. Brenner and the AAP Council on Sports Medicine and Fitness, examined the burnout and injury rates in young athletes. Although the accompanying article doesn’t delve much into the specific of the study, researchers were able to draw a number of conclusions:

• They advised that pediatricians and parents should be reminded that the focus of youth sports (before high school) should be to have fun and learn lifelong physical activity skills.

• Playing multiple sports prior to puberty decreases the risk of athlete injury, stress and physical/mental burnout.

• Specializing in one or two sports later in life – your teens – may be a better route to accomplishing athletic goals than specializing prior to your teens, as it increases the chance of lifetime sports involvement, lifetime physical fitness and potentially elite participation.

• Kids who do specialize in one sport should talk with their parents or coaches about their goals, and they should take at least three months off of their specialized sport per year, and one to two days off per week to allow for physical and mental recovery.

• Pre-teen athletes who train intensively should be closely monitored for healthy physical and psychological growth, as well as for proper nutrition.

“If you only play baseball, and get really good at baseball, the same muscles, tendons and ligaments get stressed over and over again,” leading to preventable overuse injuries, said Dr. Avery Faigenbaum, professor at The College of New Jersey, who researches exercise interventions in public schools. “This is preventable if we do a much better job of educating coaches and parents, diversifying sports participation and building that foundation on athleticism.”

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Moreover, basketball is far and away the most dangerous sport for ankle injuries, as more than 40 percent of ankle sprains occur on the hardwood. Here’s a closer look at the data:

• 41.1 percent of sports-related ankle sprains occurred while playing basketball.

• Football accounted for 9.3 percent of ankle sprain injuries.

• Soccer and running sprains made up 7.9 percent and 7.2 percent of sports-related ankle sprains, respectively.

• 53.5 percent of ankle sprains occurred in patients between the ages of 10-24.

• Treatment of ankle sprains in the U.S. costs more than $2 billion annually.

• Ankle sprain incidents spike between ages 10-14 for women and between ages 15-19 for men.

“To our knowledge, this is the first large-scale, descriptive epidemiological study of ankle sprain in the general population of the U.S.,” said Dr. Brian Waterman. “Our hope is that with the identification of these risk factors, we can recommend further prospective studies to evaluate the cost-effectiveness and feasibility of preventative measures such as prophylactic bracing and proprioceptive training in targeted, high-risk populations.”

Outside of sports, here’s some more findings about ankle injuries:

• African Americans had the highest rate of ankle sprains, followed by Native Americans, Whites and Hispanics.

• Falling down the stairs accounted for 26.6 percent of all ankle sprains, while tripping on a ground-level surface accounts for 6.7 percent of ankle sprains.

• 47.9 percent of ankle sprains occur in or around the patient’s home. 38.5 percent occur at a rec facility, while almost 15 percent occur at school.

• Males were more likely to injure their ankles at a rec center or athletic field, while women were more likely to injure their ankles at home.

Dr. Silverman comments

It’s no surprise that athletic events account for the vast majority of ankle injuries throughout the U.S. A lot of my patients end up in my office because of an injury they suffered on the playing field.

Basketball and soccer seem to be the biggest culprit, but any activity the combines running, stopping, twisting and turning on an uneven surface is bound to cause ankle problems.

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