Maintain
full function of all muscles
Test
your muscles for range of motion. Can you stretch all of your muscles
as far as they should stretch? Are there any muscles that are painful when you
stretch them? If you have dysfunctional muscles, these are likely to cause injuries
such as sprains, tendonitis and hamstring pulls during the game. To prevent injuries
and improve basketball performance, find the muscles that have irritable tight spots (trigger points). For each muscle that doesn’t move through its full range of motion, there are always trigger points
in that muscle and nearby muscles that are to blame. You need to find the trigger
points yourself or find a myofascial trigger point therapist that specializes in releasing trigger points. The various trigger points need to be pressed on and held for two seconds until they relax and your flexibility
and range of motion returns and your pain goes away.
Keep
your muscles moving
If you are already trying to recover
from injury, keep moving your muscles. Movement helps to heal muscles. Lack of movement slows the healing process.
Strengthen your ankles
Ankle sprains recur when the ankle does
not get sufficiently healed. After an ankle sprain, the muscles that are on the
outside just below knee on the outside of the calf also need to be treated so that the irritable tights spots are relaxed. If trigger points in these muscles aren’t relaxed, then these muscles will continue
to put extra load on the ankle and cause recurrent sprains.
Sharon Sauer, CMTPT, LMT
