Autumn is almost here and with the change of season many of us will be returning to our favourite activities, programs, and sports. Having your body prepared for the demands of your activity is essential to avoid injury and get the most out of being physically active!

What Fall-season physical activities and sports are you participating in this year?

• Soccer

• Ice Hockey or Field Hockey

• Basketball

• Dance or Gymnastics

• Gym/group workout programs

• Raking leaves

• Preparing garden beds for winter

• and many more!

These activities and sports require a unique combination of strength, flexibility, mobility, and cardio in order to produce skilled movement and avoid injury. Optimizing these variables is vital to attaining and maintaining athletic performance. 

How can Physiotherapy help athletes prepare for fall sports? 

1) Pre-Activity Mobility Assessment

Individualized to you, your sports/activities, and your body’s injury history, a mobility evaluation can help to identify areas of weakness, instability, tightness/restriction, over-compensation, imbalance, and more. Sometimes these asymmetries or limitations are easy to identify. Other times they require breaking down more complex movements to determine how different joints and muscles contribute to more ‘basic’ movement patterns.

** It’s important to note that some asymmetries and imbalances can be considered within the range of ‘normal variation’ amongst humans and may not require addressing. There are many correct ways to move and exercise, which is what makes playing and watching sports so entertaining!

2) Injury Prevention: Physical Conditioning program

Conditioning helps build cardiovascular stamina of your lungs, heart, and circulatory system; increase flexibility; and build strength/resilience in ligaments, muscles, and tendons. Baseline conditioning is a key component in minimizing time lost to soreness/injury when being athletic.

A program to prepare your body for the demands of the activity/sport should include elements that closely resemble sport-specific movements and complimentary exercises that will enable greater overall performance.

3) Injury Rehabilitation: Assess and treat recently acquired or old injuries

There are two primary ways in which musculoskeletal injuries (ie. muscles, bones, tendons, ligaments, etc.) can occur during sport:

• Sudden/Traumatic: Such as a soccer player colliding with another or falling on the stairs

• Overuse: High-volume, repetitive motions, such as prolonged cardio exercise your body hasn’t built up to completing or repetitive movements with less than optimal biomechanics.

A Physiotherapist can assist competitive and recreational athletes in conditioning their body for their activity, minimizing injury risk, and rehabilitating injuries with a combination of targeted exercises, hands-on therapy, and more.

Receiving physical therapy before you begin playing this fall could make all the difference in how ready your body is to be out on the ice, field, trails, or court.

Together, we can develop a plan to get you to where you need to be to get the most out of your physical activity!

Alternatively, is the Fall your off-season from sport? Off-season cross-training and taking care of injuries that crept up during your season are important to enable your body to fully recover, maintain your conditioning, and prepare for the next season or event.

Want some more ideas about what your off-season exercise might look like? Come in for an assessment and we can get you started!

- Thanks for reading and keep looking for more posts in the future on other ‘hot topics’ in the world of Physiotherapy and Physical Rehabilitation!