How to Heal 7 Common Sports Injuries If You Only Get Exercise On the Weekends, You're At Risk

Every Saturday, weekend warriors emerge from the 9-to-5 ready to hit the court, course or open trail. Want to greet Monday without common sports injuries? Here’s what you need to know... If your only weekday exercise is getting up to refill your coffee cup but you’re a jock come Saturday, you could do serious damage to your body. Why? Because you’re not well conditioned. Still, that’s no excuse for lounging on the couch seven days a week. You simply need to know what you’re up against and the steps to take if you get hurt. Here are some sports injuries common among weekend warriors: 1. Ankle Sprain If you’ve twisted your ankle, welcome to the club. About 25,000 ankle sprains occur in the U.S. each day, reports the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. One misstep on an uneven surface – or a sudden change in direction on the tennis court – could have you nursing a swollen ankle for days. Sport injury treatment: Do P.R.I.C.E immediately: protection, rest, ice, compression, elevation. Protection: Bandage, brace or use crutches for your injury when necessary. Don’t use the brace or bandage as an excuse to keep playing on an injury. This will only increase the time it takes to heal and will weaken the area, making it reliant on braces. Rest: Get off the injury and stay off. Don’t use the injured limb until swelling is reduced. Ice: “The sooner you ice, the less swelling and inflammation you’ll experience, and the faster you’ll heal,” says Marilyn Moffat, Ph.D., professor of physical therapy at New York University and co-author of The American Physical Therapy Association's Book of Body Maintenance (Peachtree Publishers). “Ice on and off for 72 hours, 20 minutes at a time,” she advises. Never apply ice directly to the skin, which can lead to frostbite. Wrapping it in a thin cloth or towel will protect your skin. A bag of frozen peas is a great makeshift ice pack you can use and reuse. Compression: Wrapping the injury (not too tightly!) in an ACE bandage helps reduce swelling. Elevation: Whenever possible, keep the injury above heart-level to reduce swelling. But don’t rest a mild sprain for too long. Once swelling and pain decrease, gradually point and flex your foot to loosen up the joint. Then try turning it inward and outward. When you can bear weight on your ankle, get walking. Doing one-legged balance exercises will strengthen the joint and protect it from future sports injuries. What NOT to do: Don’t try to walk it off; you may increase damage. You may think a twisted ankle isn’t much to worry about, but you’re wrong. “Women even as young as 40 may be prone to osteoporosis, so a twisted ankle could result in a fracture,” Moffat says. 2. Achilles Tendinitis Your Achilles tendon attaches your calf muscles to your heel. It’s a thick, strong band of connective tissue, and if it is stretched or torn – ouch! Blame tight calves from sports involving a lot of jumping or running for this common sports injury. Sport injury treatment: For a mild sprain or repetitive use injury, follow P.R.I.C.E. If you’re a runner, ease back into the sport and skip the hill work, which will only aggravate a torn tendon. Warm up properly and stretch regularly. Consider custom orthotics, which can help cushion and support the heel. What NOT to do: Don’t ignore it. A small ache can quickly become a big problem if you don’t take care of it, especially for a muscle that’s necessary for the one thing you do every day: walk. 3. Shin Splints Many a runner has suffered the dreaded shin splints, also known as periostitis, typically caused by overuse. You’ll feel pain down the front of the tibia (shinbone). Sport injury treatment: For some common sports injuries like knee pain, rest is the only cure and you’ll have to take time off from running. To soothe pain and reduce inflammation, try an ice cup: Fill a small paper cup with water and freeze it. Once frozen, peel back a couple inches of paper from the rim. Holding the base, rub the ice up and down your shin for 20 minutes. As it melts, the ice will conform to your shin and provide spot-on relief. What NOT to do: Don’t try to work through it. Stay off your legs until the pain is gone. To prevent further injury, don’t go out too hard, too fast. When you’re ready to run again, choose a soft running surface, like a track or grass − no bone-jarring concrete or pavement. Remember: Walk, jog, then run. 4. Knee Pain Knee injuries are hard to diagnose, unless you rupture your anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL, which is characterized by the dreaded “pop” and buckling of the leg. That’s because many tendons and ligaments cross or attach on or around the knee joint. Here are three major causes of knee pain: ACL sprain: Many famous athletes - both men (think football’s Tom Brady) and women - suffer this. The ACL is a main supportive connective tissue in the knee. Athletes who pivot suddenly cause the knee joint to twist and yank on the ligament. Sport injury treatment: If you injure this sucker, you’ll know it from the unnerving pop and intense pain. See a doctor right away. What NOT to do: An ACL injury is always serious. Don’t ignore it. 5. Runner’s Knee Patellofemoral pain syndrome or runner’s knee is often caused by repetitive stress to the knee joint, muscle weakness or tightness or dropped arches (flat feet). It’s not confined to runners. Any sport that uses repetitive knee motion (volleyball, basketball, football, cycling, even swimming) can cause it. What to do: Rest or decrease the intensity of your runs or workouts. Wear shoes with proper arch support and consider getting professionally fitted at your local running store. What NOT to do: You’ll aggravate it by sitting with knees bent for long periods, running downhill or walking down stairs. 6. IT Band Syndrome (ITBS) A too-tight iliotibial (IT) band is a common cause of exercise pain in runners' knees; and these sports injuries are common in basketball players and other athletes who jump a lot. The band of connective tissue and muscle runs along the outer upper thigh, down to the knee. When it’s too tight, it pulls painfully on its insertion point near the knee. Sometimes you’ll even feel pain at the band’s attachment point on the upper thigh. Running, cycling and sports that require repetitive squatting (volleyball, football, etc.) aggravate ITBS, as does sitting with bent knees. Since it’s a repetitive use injury, only rest will give it the time it needs to heal. Sport injury treatment: Using a foam roller or other device such as The Stick (a rod with spindles that’s rolled over the muscle), can help elongate the tissue and speed recovery. The American Academy of Family Physicians also recommends stretching exercises and massages. What NOT to do: Avoid repetitive knee movements. 7. Back Pain You don’t have to be an athlete, gym-rat or weekend warrior to suffer back pain. In fact, if you rarely exercise, you probably have lower back pain. That’s because a weak core contributes to a frail back. Poor posture and lifting techniques make a bad back worse. Sport injury treatment: Start core-strengthening exercises. Stretch your leg muscles, particularly your hamstrings, regularly after exercise. Use proper lifting techniques and, as your mother always said, stand up straight! What NOT to do: Never lift with your back; use your legs. Warm up properly before doing any sport that involves your back - which is pretty much everything - especially those that require twisting at the lower spine (golf, baseball, tennis). You hurt all over… Whether you just began a new exercise program or you went out too hard and fast, you’re doing more than your body can handle. Slow down! You may have goals for your body, but your body has limits. Take one step at a time. Push it only with proper training. If you’re a well-conditioned athlete and you’re suddenly experiencing aches, pains and fatigue, you’re probably overtraining. Cut back for a while, consider taking some rest days and fuel up with proper nutrition. Follow these 5 tips: 1. Get in shape for the sport; don’t use it to get in shape. “Athletes condition themselves specifically for the sport,” Moffat says. By contrast, weekend warriors use the sport for conditioning, “which can lead to injuries, aches and pains,” she says. 2. Follow the 10% rule. Don’t ask more of your body than it can handle. When it comes to your workout, never increase intensity, duration or frequency by more than 10%. For example, if you normally work out for one hour a day, five days a week (five hours total), and you want to do more, you should add only 30 extra minutes of exercise that week. 3. Do a proper warm-up. “Nobody would literally walk out the door and start sprinting,” Moffat says. “You walk, then jog, then run.” Five to 10 minutes is usually plenty for a warm-up, depending on the activity. If you’re just doing light weight lifting, you can go slowly and ease into it, she says. But if you’re doing heavier resistance training, you need a longer warm-up. 4. Increase range of motion. To stretch or not to stretch? To keep normal range of motion and elongate the muscle, stretching is key to prevent common sports injuries, particularly after your workout. “All of the literature is pointing to stretching after activity,” Moffat says. But if you’re really tight, she advises stretching before the activity… but after your warm-up. Stretches should be held for no less than 30 seconds each. 5. Don’t forget to cool down. Tapering off the end of your workout is important for preventing serious injury. “It prevents pooling of blood in the lower extremities,” Moffat says, which can cause your blood pressure to drop and may even affect normal heart rhythm. Cooling down post-workout also helps your body remove waste products like lactic acid, which means you’ll start your next workout feeling great, not sore. How Bad Is Your Back Pain? So your back hurts?