Sports Medicine Specialist

What is sports medicine?

Sports medicine at TLC Physical Therapy takes a conservative, holistic approach to treating sports injuries. Highly trained providers at the practice offer physical therapy, massage therapy, and other effective treatments to improve healing after a sports injury.

What are common sports injuries?

Common sports injuries include:

• Strains
• Sprains
• Fractures
• Tendinitis
• ACL injuries
• MCL injuries
• Concussions
• Dislocations
• Rotator cuff injuries
• Muscle tears
• Shinbone injuries

The most common symptoms of sports injuries are pain, swelling, bruising, stiffness, limited mobility, and a reduced range of motion in a joint. You may also hear crunching or popping sounds at the time of an injury or see tissue deformities.

What are the risk factors for sports injuries?

Sports injuries are common among athletes and can happen to anyone, but some things may increase your risk of getting them, which include:

• Overtraining
• Not warming up properly
• Improper training or lifting
• Poor dietary habits
• Not recovering properly
• Playing contact sports

You can also be injured while falling down, twisting, jumping, cutting, rolling your ankle, or colliding with another player.

How does a provider diagnose my injury?

Your provider checks your vital signs and reviews your medical history and symptoms. Then, they ask about the details of what happened at the time of your injury.

They also complete a physical exam and might order blood tests or an imaging procedure like X-rays, an MRI, a CT scan, or an ultrasound to diagnose your condition.

What happens during sports medicine treatments?

During sports medicine treatment at TLC Physical Therapy, your provider helps you complete stretching and sports-specific strength and cardiovascular exercises. These exercises help to strengthen the affected tissues, speed up healing, and ease the ongoing pain.

TLC Physical Therapy offers cutting-edge Keiser® exercise equipment to assist with effective healing. You might also need to wear a brace, apply ice or heat packs to injured areas, try therapeutic massage, receive injections, or undergo surgery to assist with healing your injury.

At first, you’ll attend therapy sessions with the TLC Physical Therapy team several times weekly or just once a week. As your body heals, you’ll see the physical therapist less and less often.

To learn more about sports medicine treatments available at TLC Physical Therapy, call a TLC Physical Therapy office in Staten Island or Midtown Manhattan in New York, or Englishtown in New Jersey to schedule an appointment today. Online scheduling is also available to book.