Most athletes strive to improve their sports performance on an ongoing basis and often utilize physical therapy to help them when they are recovering from an injury. However, physical therapy isn’t just for injury recovery.
Physical therapy is integral in creating and optimizing a personalized training program that prevents injuries and improves your sports performance. Top-performing athletes understand how you approach and prepare during training directly impacts their sport performance, whether they are running, playing tennis, or participating in other sports.
Whether you are a professional athlete, play sports for enjoyment, or like being an active adult, an experienced physical therapist can help correct and identify weaknesses that could lead to an injury or affect your sports performance. We will share how physical therapy can improve your sports performance and help you understand why physical therapy is crucial to helping you perform at your best.
How Physical Therapy Improves Sports Performance
Working with a skilled physical therapist who designs a personal physical therapy program for you can significantly impact your performance and ability to be an active adult and athlete.
#1. Improving Flexibility and Range of Motion
Overhead athletes, yoga instructors, runners, golfers, and other athletes depend on maintaining their flexibility. When you work with an experienced physical therapist, they can identify areas where your mobility is limited by watching and measuring how you move.
After identifying these areas, they can create a customized physical therapy program that includes target exercises to improve your range of motion and increase flexibility. By following the exercises given by your physical therapist, you will significantly improve your flexibility and range of motion.
#2. Increasing Your Power
Active adults who like to burn off energy on the basketball court, bicycling, running, or knocking balls out of the park and want to improve their strength and sports performance would greatly benefit from a few physical therapy sessions with a skilled therapist.
Your physical therapist can help retrain your muscles to provide more power and identify any muscles restricting your movements. To optimize your sports performance, you must understand how your joints, muscles, and bones work together at peak performance to increase your overall power.
#3. Improving Your Endurance
Endurance can be something that many athletes struggle with, and working with a physical therapist can significantly improve the functionality of your muscles, helping to strengthen your body and improve your muscular endurance so you can continue running at a steady pace.
#4. Increasing Your Strength
You use your muscles daily. One of the goals of physical therapy is to increase your strength and help your muscles and body operate more efficiently and effectively.
Your physical therapist will teach you how to improve your movements’ efficiency and effectiveness and help increase your overall strength, keeping you active, moving, and at the top of your game.
#5. Improving Your Gait
How we walk and move our bodies results from all our body movements working together, which is most likely not something you think about. When you improve the efficiency of your gait, you can retrain your body and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your movements and your sports performance.
#6. Improving Your Balance
For anyone with vestibular or vertigo issues, you understand how vital balance is in daily life and staying active. Balance combines our bodily functions, including vision and our vestibular system, and there are exercises that can target these areas. After starting physical therapy, you will notice an improvement in your balance and stability, which will help reduce your risk of injury and ensure you stay on your feet.
#7. Faster Recovery From Injury
Injuries can range from mild to severe, some of them keeping you out of the game for a couple of days, and others are life-changing, resulting in you no longer being able to play the game you love. Many athletes utilize physical therapy to help them recover after an injury; however, the best method for preventing damage is to prepare well in advance and work with a skilled physical therapist to improve your sports performance.
If you should get injured, a physical therapist can help identify what areas and exercises would help you recover quickly and ultimately get it back in the game, possibly even better than you were before.
#8. Reducing Your Risk of Injury
Approach, preparation, and prevention reduce your risk of injury. Physical therapy will change how you approach playing your favorite sport and help you prepare and prevent injuries because it strengthens your body and teaches you how to move effectively and efficiently.
#9. Relieves and Reduces Pain
Pain can significantly impact your daily life, and whether it is old or new, understanding how to reduce and mitigate pain to continue being active is essential. A qualified and experienced physical therapist can help identify movements you should avoid and offer alternative moving methods to reduce your pain and allow you to move more freely.
#10. Improve Your Confidence
An excellent physical therapist will significantly improve your overall confidence because they will teach you the proper way to move your body and help you master movements through training and exercise to optimize your performance on the field.
#11. Reduce Mental and Physiological Stress
Massage therapy is crucial to physical therapy and will help your mind and body relax and speed up recovery. When your body and mind are at 100%, it results in better performance. Your physical therapist is your partner in keeping you moving and active, helping you meet your goals both on and off the field.
For a Compassionate Professional Physical Therapist, Choose Liberty Physical Therapy
Physical therapy is an essential tool for athletes of all levels, whether you are a professional athlete, an active runner, or looking to begin including exercise in your daily routine. Ensuring you find a physical therapist who best suits you and your needs can help you significantly improve your sports performance.
At Liberty Physical Therapy, we treat our patients compassionately and will create a personalized treatment plan to help you recover and optimize your sports performance. We help athletes, runners, and active adults recover from and prevent injury, improve sports performance, and aid with vestibular and balance disorders and other musculoskeletal injuries in the South Metro. (Rosemount, Minnesota)
Our evidence-based holistic approach addresses the root cause of your issue to help your body heal properly and reduce the risk of further injury. Schedule an appointment today, and we will work with you to create a plan to get you back on the field and on the road to recovery!
