If you’re someone who loves sports, suffering from any kind of injury that has you benched can be a challenge. Especially for those who are older and might take a longer period of time to recover before getting back out there, trying to begin playing on your senior living sports team after your injury can be a little nerve-wracking. Luckily, there are things that you can do to help ensure that this process goes as smoothly as possible for you.
To help you see how this can be done, here are three tips for getting back into sports after an injury.
Do Some Active Recovery Beforehand
When you first get injured, resting that injury is going to be the best for you. However, once the initial trauma from the injury has subsided, you should then look for ways that you can participate in active recovery.
With active recovery, you help your body heal and recover through movement rather than from underuse. Active recovery can be done through things like stretches, walking, and trying to use that part of your body normally so that you can get back to full use as soon as possible. Because if you leave the injury to rest for too long without trying active recovery, you could develop other issues that you’ll need to figure out later on.
Modify From Your Previous Abilities
Once you feel like you’re ready to get back out there and try participating in sports again after your injury, it’s important to remember that you likely won’t have the same abilities that you had before you got hurt. And if you try to move like you did before your injury, you could wind up getting hurt again.
To work around this, it’s wise to modify your previous abilities as you’re trying to rebuild your strength and endurance. This way, you can still get back to playing, just not as competitively or with the same intensity that you did just before you got injured.
Don’t Play Through The Pain
As you begin playing your chosen sport again, it’s important that you keep yourself intune with your body and any pain that you might be experiencing.
While some stretching and stiffness might be expected, if you start to feel a lot of pain from your injury while you’re playing, you don’t want to ignore this signal from your body that’s meant to keep you safe. Rather, dial it back a bit and make sure you’re allowing your body to rest and recuperate for a while longer before you try to reach that level of fitness again.
If you’re ready to get back into sports after an injury, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you do this successfully.
