When young people engage in sport as a hobby or profession, the expectation is that they will be in the peak of health thanks to regular training and they don’t think to practice good injury prevention. But when he was a youngster, Mark Lin, a keen basketball player, found to his cost that there can be a darker side to pushing one’s physical limits. Repeated foot and ankle injuries left him seesawing between recovery and reinjury – a state of affairs that impacted heavily on the active lifestyle he was trying to pursue.
Today, Mark understands the reasons why his younger self experienced so much pain as a result of practicing the sport that still provides him with so much pleasure. The biomechanics of his lower limbs were out of kilter, leaving him prone to repeated injury. He’s not alone in this realisation. In professional sports, the army of doctors, physiotherapists and podiatrists who attend to athletes are far more frequently involved in interventions for injury prevention rather than in treating them.
Injury Prevention Vitally Important for Amateur Athletes
While the pros have all the resources and information they need to stay in peak condition at their fingertips, amateur athletes are at greater risk of injury simply because they haven’t discovered the importance of therapies for injury prevention. Often, says Lin, they only come to his Sydney podiatry clinic after repeated injuries have reached an unbearable crisis point. And the cumulative damage is far more difficult to address than it would have been had a preventative course been taken.
But it’s when athletes decide that their injuries are not sufficiently important to require assessment and therapy that they are in the greatest danger. “Untreated injuries become akin to a ticking time bomb,” says Lin. “Younger athletes often don’t really notice that their motions have been affected – but when they hit middle-age, the real problems they’ve been ignoring for years become impossible to overlook. The Footwork Clinic treats its share of former athletes suffering from post-traumatic arthritis of the foot and ankle, a form of arthritis triggered by old injuries,” says Lin. “It’s incredibly frustrating knowing that this condition could have been avoided altogether if it had been attended to a decade or two ago.”
Greater Awareness Needed for Injury Prevention Says Sports Podiatrist
Arthritis can’t be cured, although it’s possible to make people living with this condition more comfortable, says Lin. He is convinced that a great deal of misery and discomfort could be averted if there were a greater awareness of the importance of injury prevention in sport. “It doesn’t have to be limiting,” he says. “In fact, applying the correct injury prevention interventions and therapies will improve current physical performance besides offering long-term benefits to active men and women who would like to enjoy lifelong physical activity.”
So, if for those eager to push the limits in their chosen sport, it’s advisable to be sure that their body will benefit from it. It all begins with a simple assessment by a specialised sports podiatrist. The Footwork clinic boasts diagnostic tools that help athletes to see the reasons for any recommended therapies for themselves. “It’s a team effort,” says Lin. “By working together, athletes and sports therapy professionals achieve results that not only boost current performance and enjoyment of sport, but also ensure that there will be no cause for regrets later in life through injury prevention.”
The Footwork Clinic, situated in Chatswood on Sydney’s North Shore and Sydney CBD, is there to help should you have an injury or condition that you think would benefit from heat or ice treatment. They offer advanced manual therapies and a holistic and corrective care approach, with a proven track record of success in resolving acute and chronic conditions, and they will gladly offer advice to get you on the road to recovery as soon as possible.
For further information, visit the The Footwork Clinic – Leading Sports, Podiatry, Foot And Lower Limb Corrective Services to book online, or call Mark Lin or his friendly team on +61 2 9131 6891.
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The information contained in this guide is provided in good faith and is not intended to be nor is it to be used as a substitute for any sort of professional, medical or podiatric advice. An accurate diagnosis can only be made following personal consultation with a podiatrist. Any users should always seek the advice of their podiatrist, or other qualified healthcare providers before commencing any treatment.
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