Many injury plagued athletes suffer from the injury domino effect because the original injury goes untreated or the athlete tries to play through an injury resulting in making the injury worse or leads to another injury. This happens all the time. For example, one of our basketball athletes from Dewey High School in Oakland blew out his ACL a year ago and did not go through a sufficient rehabilitation program. He recieved clearance from his doctor to play basketball but when Dr. Sanchez evaluated him, his leg not just his knee was far from ready. There was so much muscle scaring around the knee and muscle imbalances in his leg from the injury, Dr. Sanchez recommended that he sit out for a six moths to a year. The athlete thought otherwise and though he followed through with the rehabilitation program he practiced with his team. During a scrimmage, the athlete sprained his ankle on the same leg with the injured knee. He recalls that he had been favoring the leg since he rejoined the team for practice and when he went up for a rebound he did not commit fully to the jump and landing and came down on the side of his foot.
Sometimes eagerness and passion for a sport overrides the logical thing to do. Dr. Sanchez stresses to all our athletes to always take care of your body and the rest will fall into place. Surprisingly many injuries can be prevented. There are injuries that you can play through but there are injuries that need time to heal. It takes a good team of coaches, trainers, and doctors to insure that the athletes long term health is taken into consideration first before the wins and loses of a game.
Go to www.up2speedsportsperformance.com for more information
