It has been said that runners have two states of fitness ??? injured or being in the process of getting injured.
Most runners will have a series of familiar symptoms associated with recurring injuries, niggles etc. They don???t normally worry us because we???ve had them many times before ??? we know what causes them and what action we need to take to deal with them. We???ve learnt that through experience, be it rest, management of the symptoms, stretching and strengthening and professional treatment they can be dealt with and managed
The problem arises when you get an injury or symptoms that you???ve not experienced before. How do you deal with this if you don???t have the knowledge???.the one thing that you don???t do is consult the RW form ???Health and Injury??? threads! At best this is useless and at worse it???s dangerous.
There is no simple ???suck it and see??? approach to new injury treatment and management. What you need is an accurate diagnosis of the cause of the injury and an effective course of treatment. It???s my view that you won???t get this without expert help. That help gained now, will pay you dividends should the injury reoccur in the future
It???s also worthwhile recognizing that running injuries occur for a reason, and knowledge of those reasons, be it overuse, muscular weakness or skeletal imbalances, will help you avoid or manage such injuries.
Notwithstanding the above it can be extremely difficult to know where to go to get the right diagnosis and treatment. To my mind sports injury therapists are a bit like a plumber with a bag of tools looking for a leak to fix. By this, I mean the type of diagnosis and treatment is more likely to determined by the discipline of the therapist than by the nature of the injury itself. A soft tissue specialist will recommend massage, a physio will recommend strengthening and stretching, a podiatrist will sell you orthotics, an osteopath will manipulate or mobilise you and a new age therapist will have you dancing naked around Stonehenge! Obviously the more multidisciplined a specialist you can get to see the better chance you have of resolution.
For myself I???d always seek to find the best I possibly can, it doesn???t always cost more than the local football injury ???specialist???, but you may have to wait a while for an appointment. Secondly once you found someone that good, stick with them and do exactly what they tell you.
