Can Injuries Be Prevented?
A Physio’s Perspective onPerformance, Risk, and Reality
“If I do all the right things; train smart, eat well and prioritise sleep, I should be able to avoid injury, right?”
It’s a fair question and one we hear a lot. But the reality is more nuanced.
While traumatic injuries in sport, or unfortunate trips and falls are an inherit risk of life; Atraumatic and typically overload based injuries are often more complex.
While monitoring training load is relatively straight forward, the influence of other factors such as poor sleep, work deadlines, emotional fatigue is harder to measure and often under appreciated.
What Can I Do?
A good place to start is to reflect honestly on your current lifestyle, habits, and training environment. Ask yourself:
“What risk factors am I currently exposed to?”
We often focus on the things we can control and rightly so.But it’s just as important to acknowledge the risk factors we can’t change, such as age or a history of previous injury. Ignoring them doesn’t make the many less influential. Instead, recognising and accepting these non-modifiable factors allows us to adapt the ones in our control from a more informed position, helping to tip the balance in our favour when it comes to reducing the risk of injury.
Injury prevention; The grey between the black and white
At Atherapy, we are all about injury prevention however we are also straight-talking and honest. If you’re an active person pushing your limits, it’s unlikely that you’ll never experience pain or disruptions to your training. Claiming otherwise would be misleading. But what we can absolutely do is reduce the likelihood, severity, and duration of injuries when they do arise.
Role of physiotherapists in injury prevention.
The role we play in injury prevention as physiotherapists depends on when someone comes to see us along their injury journey. Our inputs spans across the full spectrum of prevention from asymptomatic individuals to those working to minimise impact of confirmed diagnosis.
- Primary prevention: Reducing the risk of injury before it occurs involves well-structured training, adequate rest, and informed conversations around broader lifestyle influences
- Secondary prevention: Addressing early signs of an injury before they develop into something more serious. This may involve modifying your training plan, addressing a biomechanical issue, or temporarily offloading a sensitive area.
- Tertiary prevention: Reducing the impact of an existing injury, preventing recurrence, and promoting full, confident return to activity.
Final takeaway
Injury prevention is not a guaranteed formula rather a mix of proactive behaviours we can adopt to stack the odds in our favour. At Atherapy, we work together with our clients to help them make informed decisions, develop body awareness, and mitigate the risks associated with their unique injury risk profile.
