Tennis
The running and sports injury clinic was developed to provide a diagnostic service to injured runners and other athletes. In order to understand the cause of running injuries sophisticated and precise biomechanical analysis must be conducted. This type of evaluation includes a computerized gait analysis that utilizes a state of the art motion analysis laboratory. The motion analysis laboratory includes: specialized treadmill, 3D video analysis system with special software, surface electromyography system and ground reaction force plate.
Tennis Injury Treatment
Playing tennis requires full body coordination during each of the game routines, no matter is it serving, receiving a serve, running for the ball, backhand or forehand shot etc. Because of these reasons, endurance, flexibility, and muscle-conditioning exercises are important in preventing injuries.
Some types of tennis injuries (especially for a freshman) may appear by pushing the training process too fast. Another random injuries in tennis are the results of an occur fall, but in the other way, a high amount of trainings and tournaments may lead to specific injuries like “tennis elbow”, shoulders and wrist trauma, stress fractures, muscle strains etc. Most can be gone to a minimum or prevented fully by taking medical care for painful symptoms in NYCSPT clinic in a timely fashion.
Tennis Elbow
One of the most popular tennis players’ traumas is “tennis elbow”, which appears as a result of an overuse of the extending and the bending backwards muscles of the wrist. This is a forearm’s muscles and tendons inflammation which appears as they attach to the upper arm bone. Elbow seems to be one of the most traumatic parts for the professional tennis players, because it’s the most used muscle in impacting the ball when it touches the racquet.Hard gripping for a long time (especially if a tennis racquet is too small and push a player to grip harder) and wrong shot technique can cause pain and lead to the “tennis elbow”. By making sure that a tennis racquet is sized correctly for a hand, players may minimize the chances to be injured. Playing tennis for the first time in a long while is important to have breaks and to do stretching exercises for the wrist muscles.
Lifting movements and full extension of the arm usually cause the most pain and are the primary symptoms of “tennis elbow”.
“Tennis elbow” requires an early rehabilitation after the first symptoms would show themselves. In 90% the successful “tennis elbow” rehab by the qualified physiotherapist can be done without surgical intervention. It requires the inflammation reduction and strengthening program for the extensor tendons.
Shoulder Injuries
Shoulder is also one of the most injured parts for tennis players. Overload of the muscles and ligaments responsible for shoulder’s joint rotational movements (the “rotator cuff” area), as well as the long biceps tendon holding in the shoulder joint, in this case may lead to an injury.
In normal conditions the rotator cuff positions the shoulder in its socket and helps it to move correctly. But problems with the rotator cuff lead to inappropriate movement of the shoulder that irrigates the tissues especially with the overhead movements of the arm, like servings. During the serve shoulder pain can disturb tennis players as a result of repeated motions. This type of pain has several sources and one of the commonest causes is bursitis in the shoulder.
Prevention for this type of trauma bases on a shoulder flexibility development and its proper stretching. The inflammation and pain in the shoulder requires players to get involved into stabilizing program under the treatment of a qualified physiotherapist.
Stress Fractures
One of the commonest injuries for tennis players are stress fractures. They appear as a result of tiring the muscles (especially this occur players’ legs and feet) and putting more and more stress on the actual bone. The bone itself, stressed by such intention, cracks and creates the little breaks that lead players to inflammation and pain.
Such routines as a serving, hyperextensions and bends, put a lot of stress on an area of the vertebra, one of common places for the stress fracture to develop. If the training of the young tennis players is increased too rapidly stress fractures in the lower back are usually characterized by sore that go with bending backwards moves.
If a stress fracture appears itself, especially on the early stages, complete rest from playing tennis is a useful treatment. During this period, a progressive exercise physiotherapeutic p rogram , starts with exercises to increase the muscular stability is the treatment of choice.
Muscle Strains
As much as the stress fractures, muscle strain is a typical trauma for professional tennis players. It’s a result of an overuse of the muscles, overstretching and muscular-fiber tears, provided by them. For tennis players this type of injury usually appears in the leg, cuff or foot area accompanied by localized stiffness, discoloration and local bleeding around the strained muscle. Muscle strains location is usually easily recognized by touch or even visually (the power of pain does not always correspond to the severity of muscle damage).
Muscle strain is a result of strenuous activity usually occurs from quick, moves, sometimes referred to a muscle pull. If the muscles are not warmed up enough a severe muscle strain can also lead players to a muscle tear. The most reasons of the muscle strain are lack of warming up of the muscles during workouts, excessive physical activity or cold weather.
The calf muscle group situated at the back of the lower leg puts under pressure when a tennis player tries to move quickly and suddenly to react to an opponents’ shot. Unfortunately when the muscle stretching becomes off-limits it leads a player to a muscle tear.During the long matches lack of fuel in the muscles can become the key factor of the strain. In the process of rehabilitation from tennis injuries attention should be paid to a gentle stretching of the tired muscle and to increasing of this stretching step-by-step.
TREATMENT AT OUR CLINIC
Supervision control during the rehabilitation provided by a qualified physiotherapists at the NYCSPT can prevent the risk of re-injury for the tennis players. Our methods of treatment include:
- Gait and Running Analysis
- Dynamic Foot Pressure Analysis
- CAREN(computer assisted rehabilitation environment) balance assessment
- Diagnostic Musculoskeletal Ultrasound
More advanced methods are also suitable for tennis players trauma rehabilitation:
- ESWT (Extracorporeal Shock Wave Therapy)
- Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization (DNS)
- Balance retraining on CAREN
- Gait and running technique retraining
- Video Force Plate Feedback training