Towards the beginning of senior varsity soccer captain Brandon Wiseman’s season he tore his knee muscle during a practice. Already having one surgery on his right meniscus his sophomore year, Wiseman now had to go into to have another surgery on his left one.
After being on crutches, he went through about a month of physical therapy and then continued his rehab by himself.“To cope with my injury, I spent majority of my time in the weight room doing the things that I could do,” Wiseman said. “It was the closest thing to actually playing that I could get.”
As an injured athlete, Wiseman found it hard to sit on the sidelines and unable to contribute to his team.
“Watching my team play while not being able to help was honestly the worst punishment I could imagine,” Wiseman said. “Especially as a captain, I felt like I was letting my team down each and every game.”
These injuries cause athletes to have frequent visits to doctors, surgeons and physical therapists.
Dr. John Samani, M.D. specializes in training in sports medicine and arthroscopic and reconstructive knee and shoulder surgery.
Samani has found that ankle sprains are the most common injury among high school athletes, while the most at-risk athletes tend to be female soccer or basketball players who often suffer from knee problems.
Samani has found shoulder injuries in overhead sports, racket sports, swimmers, throwing athletes the most concerning. For sports like soccer, football, and basketball, lower extremity injuries are far more common, including ankle sprains, knee ligament injuries, and meniscus tears.
While some athletes have the option of surgery to repair their injuries and get back on the field, others like senior Brad White aren’t so fortunate.
In 8th grade, doctors discovered that White had two fused vertebrae in his neck.
While dangerous surgery was an option, White chose the safe route which left him unable to play most contact sports for the rest of his life.
Without any physical therapy options, White had to quit hockey, which he considered his, “favorite sport.”
At first White found it difficult to cope with being incapable of playing hockey but over time accepted his injury and advises other students in similar situations to do the same. He still plays basketball, tennis and golf.
“For others who have to stop playing because of an injury, I would just have to say I’m sorry,” White said. “It’s best not to dwell on what could have been, but make the most out of what you can do in the future to be successful.”
Samani also found that if left untreated, some injuries may require surgery later in life.
“If something’s addressed early you can protect the athlete from further damage and these things can heal especially in younger people,” Samani said.
Physical therapist recommend that patients rest their injuries, icing, anti-inflammatory pills and cortisone shots to reduce swelling, and taping, crutches and slings.
Leaving an injury untreated also causes decreased performance.
“Athletes who play injured certainly can’t perform at the same level that they could if they had things treated in an expeditious fashion,” Samani said.
While students are often tempted to rush through rehabilitation and ignore doctor’s suggestions, athletes have often found that it’s much worse reinjuring themselves and being out of season for even longer.
“My advice for other injured athletes is to take your time with the rehab and do it right,” Wiseman said. “There is nothing worse than thinking you are ready to play and then reinjuring yourself.”
Though surgery takes time to recover, athletes can frequently return back to their sport when they otherwise may not have been able to.
“We always tell people as much as science has taken us forward it’s still hard to duplicate the normal anatomy,” Samani said. “If you have to operate on somebody certainly it’ll make them better than before but there are always the long term implications that you may not have restored it back to its original state and it may not be a permanent fix.”
The two main ways to prevent an injury are cross training and strength training.
Strength conditioning, appropriate coaching, and certain techniques along with technical training, better prepare the body for sports.
“There’s certain strength training that we know will help to prevent anterior cruciate ligament tears in the knee,” Samani said. “There are certain techniques with certain kinds of activities like throwing, if you’re throwing in a biomechanically sound fashion you’re much less likely to get hurt.”
Allowing athletes to play multiple sports can help to prevent injuries as well.
“There are studies now showing that if an athlete is playing a single sport all year round they’re more likely to have problems,” Samani said.
While the number of injuries in young athletes is on the rise, there has been more movement to try to prevent injuries.
“There’s been a huge push in a lot of our medical societies to try to prevent injuries now because it’s really alarming how much surgical injuries we’re seeing in young athletes at younger and younger ages,” Samani said.
