If you're an athlete or dancer of any kind, I'm sure you have experienced or know someone that has experienced an injury of some kind. I'd like to talk about a couple of injuries that not only my students have had, but some that I've had as well.
A couple of weeks back my two soloists performed at the LCS Festival at Southeastern University. Previous to that competition one of my soloist went to an audition and pulled their right hamstring. If you're an athlete or dancer of any kind, you know just how painful it can be to pull your hamstring right before a game or performance. You also know even better what it's like to take care of that injury and make sure it is healing. With only a few weeks left till the competition he had to make sure he was not only resting, but icing, compressing, and elevating his leg in order to make sure it was healing properly. As we arrived closer to the competition his leg was extremely close to being healed and he decided, as many do, "THE SHOW MUST GO ON!" Therefore, he competed at the LCS Festival, however during his performance he pulled his left quadricep muscle (quad muscles).
Many of you are probably thinking, "well, he clearly did not stretch before he performed at either the audition or the competition." However, as many of us that have endured injuries with sports or dance, we know that sometimes it does not matter how well or how much you stretch there are some injuries that are occasionally inevitable. Since his performance at the LCS Festival he has been resting, icing, compressing, and elevating his left leg to continue to help the healing process. Something he has also continued to do is make sure he is still taking care of his right leg as well in order to make sure to prevent another future injury.
I myself have dealt with wrist injuries, ankle sprains and breaks, extreme knee injuries and back injuries in the past that occasionally still flare up. When I was about 14 years old, I injured my left knee in a dance class while doing a leap that I have done since day one. After this happened, I was unable to dance for weeks that unfortunately turned into a little over a month. Therefore, I visited an orthopedic surgeon multiple times and after many MRIs I had finally received a J-Lateral knee brace that would continue to prevent future complications. Shortly after I had begun getting my knee problem handled, I was at a dance convention and was abruptly and forcefully kicked in the back therefore causing irritation to my vertebrates and nerves in my lower back. During my competition days I learned many ways to take care of injuries and still be able to perform like I wanted to.
A lot of times, people become afraid of their injury. Once you've become afraid of your injury you begin to baby your injury. Unfortunately, this can become an even bigger trouble to your injury. You do not want to baby it because most often it can prolong the injury. When some part of your body becomes injured, you want to take care of it but you also want to try to treat it somewhat normally. Meaning, you want to continue to take care of it, but you also want to make sure you are stretching it little by little to make sure your injury is not tightening up to a point where it hurts. Something that everyone needs to know is when you pull or sprain something the lactic acids in your body begin to harden within that injury to help make sure it comes back stronger than before. The only issue with this is, you must break up the lactic acids in order to make sure the injury doesn't become stiff and even more painful.
A few things I have done to help take care of injuries consist of, resting, icing, compressing, and elevating the injury in order to help inflammation subside, taking ibuprofen only when the pain becomes to a point that icing, compressing, and elevating are no longer helping, and stretching or massaging the muscle to make sure the lactic acids are broken up. When it comes down to it use the R.I.C.E. therapy technique.
R- Rest your injury as often as possible,
I- Ice your injury for only 20 minutes at a time, meaning 20 minutes with the ice on your injury and 20 minutes without the ice,
C- Compress your injury, use either a brace or ace bandage to compress the swelling but remember to allow enough space for two fingers to fit in between the brace/bandage and your skin. You do this to ensure you are still allowing blood to flow freely.
E- Elevate your injury as often as possible. For example, if your injury is on a jointed part of your body (elbow or knee) make sure to allow your leg or arm to bend in order for blood to flow freely.
Something else that has become my best friend over the years when I don't have time to do the things listed above is using BioFreeze. This is not an addictive muscle relaxer, it only helps to relax the muscle that it is injured in order to help you be able to perform longer with slightly less pain. When you are in a world where injuries are possible you have to make sure you are taking care of your body as well as possible, you need to stretch before every practice, performance, or game, you also need to occasionally take baths with epsom salt to help relieve your muscles of any soreness that may already be there or may become a future occurrence.
If there is a way that you prefer to take care of yourself that you have found helpful, write a comment below to help others as well! Remember to check back for more new posts!
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