January 30, 2025Summer brings sunshine, longer days, and the perfect chance to enjoy your favourite sports like tennis, golf, or basketball. But before diving in, it is important to remember that enthusiasm without preparation can lead to painful setbacks. From fractures to strains, common sports injuries can turn your summer fun into a season of recovery.
Here are some of the most common sports related injuries to watch out for:
- Fractures: A partial or complete break in any bone, which can result from repeated stress (like overuse) or a single trauma such as a fall.
- Dislocations: A painful separation of two bones at a joint, often caused by a direct blow or fall during contact sports.
- Strains: Tears or overstretching of muscles or the tendons that connect muscle to bone.
- Sprains: Damage to ligaments, the tough connective tissue that stabilizes joints, caused by sudden twists or impacts.
- Overuse Injuries: Repetitive stress to bones, ligaments, tendons, or muscles, often stemming from doing too much too soon.
Tom Cooper, Physiotherapist and Dylan Perera, Senior Exercise Physiologist at Northern Health know a thing, or two, about common summer sport injuries.
“The most common summer sports injuries are either acute sprains like a rolled ankle or back sprain. The other most common injury are overuse injuries such as Achilles tendinopathies or Runner’s Knee,” says Mr Cooper.
“In the New Year, people get very motivated about their health and fitness and take up new exercise routines, which is fantastic. Acute sprains and strains usually occur due to accidents during sports, such as falling awkwardly on the ankle or attempting too heavy a weight in the gym. Overuse injuries occur when someone rapidly increases their exercises levels from being very sedentary to very active in a short amount of time. The muscles, tendons, bones and connective tissue have not had time to grow and adapt to your new activity levels yet, because this takes weeks and months to achieve,” advises Mr Perera.
Summer sports should be about enjoyment, not injuries. By taking a few simple precautions and listening to your body, you can make the most of your favourite activities and stay in the game all season long.
Here is some useful advice from our staff:
“To avoid acute sprains and strains, ensure you are adequately warmed up before you exercise or play sports. This is best done through low intensity plyometric exercises, agility drills and mobility work. To avoid overuse injuries, we recommend slowly building up your total amount of exercise you do over a longer period of time. The national guidelines for exercise recommend 150-300 minutes per week of moderate to vigorous intensity exercise but if you are doing little or no exercise even 15 minutes a few times a week is a great place to start.” – Tom Cooper.
“It’s important to listen to your body as it will communicate early warning signs like fatigue, stiffness and excessive muscle soreness. Putting in some extra effort into recovery strategies such as sleep, healthy refuelling, and active recovery will help to prevent progression of niggles into injuries.” – Dylan Perera.
If you have an injury that is stopping you from exercising, please make an appointment with the Staff Physiotherapy Clinic via the Intranet here.
If you are wanting advice about how to start a new exercise routine, or how to better use exercise to improve health and fitness, please make an appointment with the Staff Exercise Physiology Clinic via the Intranet.
Pictured in featured image (L-R): Dylan Perera and Tom Cooper.
