Some injuries are more common in football than others. Those we see more often are related to planting one foot and kicking with the other. This movement puts a lot of force through the hip, knee, and ankle of the planted foot.
Meniscus Injuries
Within the central knee joint there are two C-shaped pieces of cartilage called menisci. Their role is to provide more stability to the knee joint by keeping the ends of the thighbone aligned with the shinbone. What the menisci do not like is weight-bearing and twisting at the same time. Unfortunately, this is hard to avoid in football.
There are a number of different tears that a meniscus can suffer. Perhaps the least impactful is a transverse tear, where there is only a small stable tear cutting into the cartilage from the inside of the joint. More painful and unpredictable is a bucket handle tear. This is where the tear occurs along the line of the C-shaped cartilage. This tear is long enough that the inner edge can flap open like a bucket handle. Because of its two possible positions, the injury will sometimes be very uncomfortable, and at other times be much less significant. This change can happen multiple times through a day.
Ligament Tears and Sprains
There are four commonly injured ligaments that support the knee. ACL, PCL, MCL, and LCL. These four ligaments prevent the knee from shearing backwards and forwards too far or gapping too far. The mechanism of injury is usually simply doing too much of those movements. Forceful tackles are off the culprit here but sometimes a severe injury can affect both the meniscus and ligaments in one motion.
Muscle Strains
Professional footballers are often hindered by hamstring or calf strains or tears. At high-level football it’s possible that the strength of the muscle itself holds enough power to cause an injury like this. But for the majority of us these strains are more likely to happen as result of excessive movement. An example of this would be overstepping for the ball. The good news is that muscle strains are much easier to rehabilitate, and heal quicker than either ligaments or cartilage.
Osteopathy for Football Injuries
Avin has a special interest in sports injuries, so he’s well placed to look after you if you’re struggling with a football injury. The first thing he will want to do is to diagnose the cause of your pain. The more detail you can offer about the mechanism of injury the better, but this will be supported with a hands-on examination. Don’t worry if you don’t have a great idea of how it happened. Some of these injuries tend to arise together; your examination will be thorough enough to identify secondary injuries that you might not have noticed.
Treatment will vary dramatically from case to case. We will often involve work beyond the painful area, to prevent and manage any patterns of compensation. Expect to play less football while you recover, but know that we won’t keep you off for too long. Returning to weight-bearing while tissues are still healing is good for building strong tissue and minimising scarring. Do expect to have a number of rehab rehabilitation exercises to continue at home though.
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