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All sports make you vulnerable to injuries. Even low-impact sports like golf and tennis require a high level of endurance which can take a toll on new players. Thus, to boost performance and avoid injuries, golf and tennis players must adopt the right practices. This article talks about various ways players can prevent injuries. But before that, let’s look at various injuries that golf and tennis players are prone to.
Injuries involved in playing golf
The majority of injuries in golf players are caused due to overuse. Here are some of the frequent injuries they experience:
Low back pain
Poor muscle strength and flexibility can cause back pain in golf players. A golf swing requires full body movement and a flexible back. Repeated swings can put extra pressure on the back muscles, causing strain.
Tennis elbow/golf elbow
Tennis elbow is more common in golf players than golf elbow. Tennis elbow is an injury to the outer elbow bone. This is not a physical injury but a chronic pain in the tendons around the tennis elbow.
The golf elbow is less popular among golfers but is caused when the inner elbow bone gets compromised with overuse.
Shoulder rotator cuff
Shoulder rotator cuff injuries are common in golfers due to the occurrence of full shoulder movement in making golf swings. Also, this is the prime reason for shoulder pain in golf players. This condition develops in case of shoulder dislocation or inflammation of tendons and ligaments around the shoulder rotator cuffs.
Injuries involved in playing tennis
Tennis and golf elbow
Tennis players are also susceptible to elbow pain caused due to tennis elbow or golf elbow. This may again be caused due to overuse of muscles and tendons around the elbow bone area. As tennis players must make repeated hand movements with double the power, the elbow and shoulder area gets compromised, resulting in unseen but painful injuries like carpel tunnel syndrome, wrist injuries, and other related tendon injuries.
Back pain
Back pain is also predominant in tennis players, especially during serving. The extra stress required during serving puts pressure on the lower back, sometimes resulting in vertebrae fractures.
Tennis knee
Tennis knee or tendonitis is caused due to over stress on the tendons attached to the kneecap and shinbone. Landing abruptly, jumping, and other sharp knee movements while playing cause pain and swelling in the knee area.
Ankle sprains
Ankle sprains are also common in tennis. Sometimes the extreme outstretching required to play a shot results in faulty landing and lumping, causing ankle sprains. Ankle sprains are common in clay courts because the clay is soft, and the foot digs inside, causing the foot to turn abruptly and leading to a sprain.
Injury prevention in golf players and tennis players
There are many ways to prevent injuries in golf and tennis players. As the injuries from golf and tennis are nearly the same, here are a few injury prevention tips that work.
Always warm-up
Warming up a bit before playing can help prepare your body before the body goes into intense play. Simple exercises focusing on the key body parts affected when playing golf and tennis are recommended. The warm-up exercise should focus on moving your hands, legs, shoulder, and back. This will make a lot of difference in athletic performance. Warming up for tennis and golf doesn’t have to be too rigorous. Just playing a few shots before you toil yourself hard does the trick.
Wear right shoes
Wearing the right shoes is often disregarded. However, each sport has specific types of shoes that are designed considering the need of the game. Wearing the right shoe can help prevent ankle sprains, tiredness, and muscle soreness and keep your endurance high. The right shoes/footwear also help maintain the footwork needed in every sport.
Athletes don’t wear football shoes. Football players don’t wear tennis shoes. This is enough to know the importance of wearing the right pair of shoes that cater to a specific sport.
Use RICE principle
The RICE principle has been beneficial in minimizing pain to an extent. It stands for Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation. The procedure can help ease the inflammation and pain in the knee, shoulder, back, and elbow. Ice needs to be applied for the first 20 minutes and then repeated after every two hours.
The ice works on bringing down the swelling, whereas elevation allows the blood circulation to stay intact for a while to bring the swelling down. It’s more suitable to heal an injury faster.
Take chiropractic care
Some of the injuries are caused due to weak muscle strength, lack of flexibility, and other similar reasons. Such injuries can be prevented with the help of chiropractor sports medicine. Chiropractic sports medicine is a dynamic way of preventing any sports injuries. These include the use of hands by chiropractic to relax your muscles.
Chiropractic care can usually be incorporated into training practice to prevent a player from golf and tennis injuries. It not only helps in healing the injuries but prevents them too.
Some basic injuries like rotator cuff injuries (shoulder pain), back pain, and golf and tennis elbow can be best avoided and treated through proper chiropractic care. Chiropractic care proves beneficial for quick recovery and considerably reduces the need to take pain medications. If you are looking for a sports chiropractor in Austin to help you deal with tennis and golf injuries, contact us today.
