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12 Dec 2024Why should you consider seeing a physical therapist at Premium Sports and Orthopedics before you grab your skis and head up in the mountains? Health and safety are key reasons. Medical experts report that about half of all ski injuries involve one of three areas:
- Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL)
- Knee meniscus
- Medial collateral ligament (MCL)
However, several other common ski injuries range from skier’s thumb to head injuries and dislocations to sprains. Even broken bones can occur on the slope. As skiing is seasonal, it’s easy for your muscles and joints to take on extra strain when it’s been months since you last hit the slopes. Physical therapy is a must for that reason. Take a closer look at the many benefits of physical therapy.
Injury Prevention
Ideally, you want to go skiing all day without injuring yourself. Equipment that fits correctly helps, but it’s not all you can do. Make sure you wear a helmet to protect yourself from head injuries, though a helmet alone isn’t enough. You also need to stick to slopes that match your skiing abilities and stay on a trail. Too many skiers end up lost on the back of a mountain and end up with serious injuries like frostbite and hypothermia.
That sets you up to better protect yourself from injuries, and a physical therapist helps with the rest. One area where a physical therapist helps is by improving your range of motion and strength.
Exercises that target specific muscles, tendons, and ligaments will improve joint health and flexibility. Many of these exercises match the moves you make while skiing, so they boost both your strength and your confidence. Exercises start gradually and increase until you reach peak performance. At that point, you’re ready for the slopes.
Tell your physical therapist about your skiing habits. Expect to answer the following questions.
- Are you mainly cross-country or downhill?
- Do you prefer challenging black diamond runs or are you still learning and sticking to easier terrain?
- How long have you been skiing?
- Have you had injuries in the past that make you more cautious than you used to be?
- Do you go over jumps, work your way through moguls, or enjoy slaloms?
All of this is important for a physical therapist as the techniques and training vary depending on your style and preferences. The more you share, the more targeted the exercises are.
Most physical therapy for skiers focuses on strengthening the leg and knee muscles. Knees take a lot of impact as they twist and bounce on a slope’s hilly terrain. Even the snow quality can impact the risk of an injury. Packed, icy snow can be harder to navigate than loose powder. Having muscles and joints that have a good range of motion, strength, and endurance is essential for injury prevention.
You’ll learn the best warm-up and cool-down techniques to use before you head to the top of the slope and when you’re done skiing for the day. When your muscles and joints are warmed up and ready for action, injuries are less likely to occur.
Performance Improvement
Competitive skiers need to be at the top of their game. Performance is everything, and physical therapists help skiers improve their performance, too. It’s another benefit to consider as winter ski season arrives.
Physical therapy exercises assist with the following:
- Better balance and coordination – If you are able to correct your positioning and avoid a fall or quickly adjust your path to avoid a collision, you reduce the risk of injury.
- Enhanced range of motion – When you have more range of motion, you’re able to move faster and more fluidly when you’re rushing downhill.
- Improved muscle tone and strength – Stronger muscles deliver more power and control as you navigate turns, bumps, and shifting snow.
- More flexibility – Flexibility makes it easier to move around and readjust if your feet and skis start to slide out of position.
With each physical therapy session, you can work on things you noticed were still harder than they needed to be the last time you hit the slopes. You’ll continue working on strength, flexibility, range of motion, and flexibility, and that makes it easier to build stamina and perform better.
Faster Recovery From Skiing Injuries
After injuring yourself on the slopes, it often feels impossible to recover quickly enough to get back on the slopes before ski season ends. Not only are your muscles tight from lack of use, but you have pain associated with the injury, and that pain is tied to inflammation. Inflammation slows the healing process.
When you arrange care with a physical therapist, your body heals faster. It also lowers the risk of reinjury as your therapist looks at what happened and determines a path forward that helps you work on balance, stamina, and other criteria that keep you from falling, crashing, or straining a joint so much while skiing that damage occurs. Here’s what to expect at your first and subsequent appointments after a skiing injury.
At your first appointment, your new physical therapist will go over your medical charts and look at any past injuries you received. You’ll discuss how it happened and what the treatment plan entails. If you have crutches, a walking boot, or another assistive device, bring it with you.
Your therapist will feel the area around the injury, view X-rays and scans, and assess your range of motion and strength in the affected joints. After this, treatment goals and plans are developed. You’ll learn how many appointments are necessary and what you’ll need to do at home in between appointments.
With each subsequent appointment, strength and range of motion are addressed again to monitor improvement. If the treatment plan needs adjusting, it’s done then and there. Again, you’ll do some work with the physical therapist during your appointment. However, you’ll also go home with exercises to complete each day. You must work on those exercises and tell your physical therapist if you’re having a hard time completing them.
After an injury, a physical therapist also assists with pain management. Over-the-counter or prescription pain relievers are helpful, but they shouldn’t become a dependency. A physical therapist uses massage, heat therapy, and other therapies to ease pain and inflammation. This makes it easier to move to the exercises you’ll work on together.
It’s time to enjoy skiing without the injuries that typically keep you from the slopes. Arrange a consultation with Premium Sports & Orthopedics. Our team of doctors and physical therapists is ready to help you enjoy the sport you love without being sidelined by a painful injury.
