Physical Rehabilitation

San Diego Athletic Injury Treatment

After Dr. Allen diagnoses your condition he will provide you with a treatment plan.  Many different sports injuries are rehabilitated at SDRI. These athletics include an assortment of various sports which include competitive running, cycling, football, soccer, wrestling, tennis, baseball, motocross, track and field, cheerleading, gymnastics, crossfit, mixed martial arts (MMA), softball, swimming, volleyball, basketball, field hockey, and lacrosse to name a few.

All of these various sporting events involve diverse movements and biomechanics of the body.  These movements include running, jumping, walking, lifting and throwing. The most common types of athletes that we treat everyday at SDRI include road running (marathon and half marathon training), trail running, cross country running, track and field as well as race walking. These types of competitions are becoming more and more popular due to the lack of a need for expensive equipment like many of the other sports.  These types of events are mostly an individual type sport that any fitness level can compete in at their own pace.

With this intense type of training to compete come many different types of sports injuries.  Some of the most common types of running, soccer, and basketball injuries that we treat at SDRI include: plantar fasciitis, plantar plate sprains/tears, heel spurs, ankle sprains, achilles tendonitis, shin splints, stress fractures, runner’s knee, patella-femoral pain syndrome, hamstring strains, groin strains, meniscus tears, illiotibial band syndrome, hip bursitis, piriformis syndrome, gluteus medius syndrome, lower back problems (such as sciatica), and disc bulges.

Each sport has multiple types of injuries and must be managed on a case-by-case basis.  For example Football injuries usually include but are not limited too– ACL injuries, medial and lateral Meniscus injuries, Hamstring strains, hip pointer injuries, partial shoulder dislocations, and AC-joint separations.  Other sports such as weight lifting, baseball, softball, wrestling, cross-fit, and tennis include injuries such as rotator cuff injuries or tears, impingement syndrome, shoulder instability, tennis elbow (lateral epicondylitis), golfers/throwers elbow (medial epicondylitis), medial elbow ligament injuries, ankle sprains, patella tendonitis and carpal tunnel syndrome.  Some common skiing and snowboarding injuries include different types of knee trauma resulting in varies degrees of sprains and strains.

At the San Diego Running & Sports Injury Clinic we offer a wide variety of services to meet the needs of any athlete.  Some of our services include:

• Physical Rehabilitation (Strength and Conditioning)
• Custom Orthotics (made in-house)
• Ultrasound
• Electrical Stimulation
• Myofascial Release
• Numerous Rehab/”Prehab” Classes
• Sports Injury Self Help Clinics
• Kinesiotaping, KT Taping, Rocktaping

and our newest piece of therapy equipment—The “Alter-Gravity Treadmill” which allows injured runners and athletes to continue to run and maintain their cardiovascular fitness and muscle mass while at the same time return to sport sooner without being de-conditioned.

AlterG Anti Gravity Treadmill

The Alter-G treadmill allows for adjustable impact while walking or running. We simply adjust the AlterG to remove a percent of your body weight away thus making you lighter.  This results in an associated percent decrease taken away from your muscles, bones and joints.  You will be amazed as the pain just…disappears!  This new state of the art technology allows for a gradual progression of exercise.  Some injuries or joint replacements can mean a long road to recovery…not anymore!  With the Alter-G we can start you on the road to recovery sooner and scientifically progress you forward by gradually adding a percent of your body weight back as your body strengthens and adapts.  This minimizes impact and torsion forces that can lead to injury.  Runners and athletes who want to increase their mileage but minimize their risk of injury can now do so with the AlterG technology.  Even older runners who have decreased their mileage or stopped running altogether can run pain-free on the AlterG due to less stress on their joints.

Read through case studies of SDRI patients who have benefitted from using the AlterG Treadmill in their rehabilitation.

[notice class=”approved”]SDRI AlterG Treadmill Case Studies[/notice]

Proper Injury Assesment

Ignoring any type of sports injury or musculoskeletal pain for too long can lead to various negative changes to your body. These changes can cause the injury to worsen and further damage the muscle and tissue that sustained the initial injury or even result in compensation injuries. Now, a minor injury that would have normally taken a couple of days to heal may take significantly longer.  Proper assesment is extremely important in identifying and designing a comprehensive and effective healing and rehabilitation strategy.   If the injury is not rehabilitated properly, healing times will be slow and this injury can turn into a chronic problem and reoccur.  Proper treatment can be beneficial in helping the athlete return to their prior level of fitness and their sporting activity as well as helping them improve their physical performance and avoid further injury.

Proper assesment is extremely important in identifying and designing a comprehensive and effective healing and rehabilitation strategy.

At SDRI we look at areas of imbalance from the feet up and make the necessary biomechanical changes in order to get the athlete back to their sport or daily activities.  A coordinated physical rehabilitation program and home exercise are essential for advanced healing and allow for the athlete to return to their sport or activity.  We treat the injury at hand while allowing the individual to still continue to train (at the highest possible level) keeping up with their cardiovascular fitness.  This is where the AlterG treadmill comes into play.  It allows injured athletes to continue training without damaging the muscular tissue or aggravating the injury.  The cornerstone of this effective treatment is an early and correct diagnosis followed by the proper therapy that will fix it.   Most injuries can be resolved without surgery and can heal very quickly if treated correctly.  The earlier you see Dr. Allen at San Diego Running Institute the more conservative the therapies will be in most cases.

It is very important to take all injuries seriously.

Especially when there is a high demand of training placed on the body.  Most of the time minor injuries will heal on their own given a certain amount of rest.

The body has a speedy way of recovering when the injury is minor and you do not continue to irritate the injury. 

As long as you are a reasonably healthy individual before you were initially injured the healing progress will be very rapid.  When the injury is more complex or severe your body may not heal itself without proper rehabilitation.  It may need outside help such using  various modalities like, manipulation, therapeutic ultrasound, muscle simulation, proper exercise/rehabilitation, the Alter Gravity treadmill, etc.  These will help to speed up the cellular healing process by increasing blood flow to the damaged tissue which in turn increases cellular respiration and nutrition uptake. If these types of injuries are not cared for immediately they can turn into chronic conditions associated with chronic pain and physical limitations.  In this situation the body will fail to heal itself and the pain will continue.  These injured tissues will stay damaged and result in severe scar tissue and may turn into a repetitive strain or overuse type injury.

A good example of this is when someone gets plantar fasciitis in the foot.  This condition is a result of slow-motion trauma to the plantar fascia, which can last for weeks, months or even years.  Without proper treatment this condition will hang around for a long periods of time (I did say years in some cases).  You need the proper treatment in order to initiate the healing process.

At the San Diego Running & Sports Injury Clinic we treat this time and time again and have developed specific protocols in order to speed up this healing process sometimes in as little as 6 treatments.

This type of protocol is why professional athletes heal so quickly.  They are receiving all of these modalities and highly specialized treatment protocols performed multiple times each day.  They are once again speeding up that cellular healing process and decreasing pain to the involved area.  Another good example of an injury that can get worse if not cared for properly is “shin splints”.  We treat and fix this regularly at SDRI.  This condition is sometimes referred to as “tibial degeneration” or “fatigue of the bone”.  These are two common repetitive strain injuries that involve fatigue but effect different types of tissue, both being due to overuse.  When bone becomes inflamed it reacts and results in damage to the bone much in the same way inflammation would result in damage to your muscle or tendon.  This leads to degenerative changes, which causes the bone to degrade and breakdown.  This further leads to an unwanted stress response resulting in a stress fracture if not diagnosed and cared for early on.  The right amount of stress on bone and tissue will continuously help to rebuild and maintain the tissue as long as it is given plenty of recovery time.  To insure and accelerate healing we incorporate the Alter Gravity treadmill into the rehabilitation program to maintain a positive healing response and help this tissue regenerate at accelerated speeds.  Using the we can adjust the stress responses in 1% increments of body weight allowing us to have the athlete train at the optimal rate, intensity and frequency and heal at an accelerated rate all while maintaining their cardiovascular fitness.

This is all made possible by the treatment techniques, imaging and modalities that we use here at SDRI on an every day basis.

Once an accurate diagnosis is reached Dr. Allen provides a proper treatment to the patient. It is not unusual to provide the patient with multiple treatment options ranging from the most conservative (“DIY” approach) to the least conservative (have surgery). In fact, very few patients require surgery except in the most serious of situations. Our job is to help you avoid surgery and we are very good at that. We like to take an all-inclusive approach (“kitchen sink”) when treating someone with sports injuries.

Treatments may include: therapeutic ultrasound, electrical stimulation, gentle spinal and extremity adjustments, corrective exercises to restore muscle balance and correction of any asymmetries. Home stretching and strengthening programs, Home foam roller/self massage routines, Sports Taping/Kinesiotaping/Rock Taping are always taught to patients so that they may participate in treating their own injury on a daily basis.

We consider it both necessary and crucial to involve the patient not only in understanding their condition or injury but also in participating in fixing it by doing as much work at home, on his or her own, as possible.

By doing the home stretching and strengthening routines patients can often avoid numerous trips to the Chiropractor or Physical Therapist who will essentially watch them exercise. We feel most patients, if given the proper tools, do not need to be baby-sat and pay someone to watch them exercise.

If you suffer from either acute or chronic pain due to an injury and would like to receive an accurate diagnosis and treatment options please call our clinic today. Our office number is (858) 268-8525. If you prefer to get more information before calling you can email Dr. Allen directly at Drallen@sdri.net.  Feel free to ask any questions you have and allow for 1-2 days to receive a response.