How Does a Physiotherapist Help with Stretching When You Are Injured?

Phil Edwards, Physiotherapist, discusses how a physiotherapist can help you stretch effectively after an injury.

Stretching is very important in injury recovery.

Stretching and return of normal range of motion to your joint and to the injured tissue, it’s vital that we get that so that you can return to normal movement.

Often, people who are injured, let’s say they’ve injured a knee, they compensate and they may limp for a little while.

That in itself will produce other problems. Quite soon, it’s revealed through examination that you’ve produced tightness or a limited range at an associated joint.

Quite commonly, if you’ve hurt your knee, you will get a hip problem or an ankle problem.

And if you’re not looking for that, you need a professional like a physiotherapist who can find that out and nip it in the bud and make sure that you keep everything stretched out that can be stretched out, even avoiding the injury and still maintain your range of motion.

So if you’re going to do an overhead smash playing tennis, or lunge sideways if you’re a hockey goalie, sticking your leg right out, and you have not restored an injured muscle to its previous length so that you can do those activities, then you’re definitely going to cause strain somewhere else and you’re asking for trouble.

When you’re injured, very naturally, your body goes into protective mode and it will do what’s called ‘guarding’, and your muscles will tighten up just to protect yourself.

With a very guided rehabilitation of lengthening that muscle gradually to its proper length, you will regain your strength and flexibility back into the injured area.

If you’re looking for a stretching program or somebody to help you with learning how to stretch properly, then a physiotherapist is the person to see.