The fastest way to recover from sports injuries

The core of the fastest recovery from sports injuries has never been a certain special drug or a certain Internet celebrity rehabilitation action, but "precise intervention in the golden period after injury classification + load progression that matches the individual recovery progress + full-cycle secondary injury prevention and control." If one of the three is missing, the recovery speed will be at least half. This is the most practical conclusion that I have come to after working as an amateur sports rehabilitation assistant for 5 years and exposed to nearly a hundred cases of running and ball sports injuries.

When it comes to the treatment of newly injured people, the sports rehabilitation circle is actually quite noisy right now. In the early decades, everyone believed in the RICE principle, which means that if you are injured, you should rest immediately, apply ice, apply pressure bandage, and elevate the affected limb without moving it at all. ； Now a new POLICE principle has been proposed, which requires replacing "complete rest" with "optimal load." As long as there is no structural damage, you can also do small-scale activities in the acute phase, which can promote blood circulation and recover faster. Last month, I met a junior student who played badminton. He had just sprained his foot and listened to his roommate's instructions to rub it vigorously and spray blood-activating and blood-stasis-removing medicine. As a result, it swelled like a steamed bun. He came to me 36 hours late and took an MRI to confirm that it was just a soft tissue contusion. He was supposed to be able to walk in a week according to the POLICE principle. However, it took two weeks before he could walk normally because of the wrong treatment. Of course, this does not mean that the old principles are completely useless. If there is a torn ligament or even a fracture, you still have to brake honestly and don't move blindly to avoid secondary injuries. This is also the core reason why the two factions can't come to an outcome: the logic of handling different degrees of damage is inherently different, so there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Oh, by the way, there is also controversy about ice compresses. Some studies say that ice compresses can constrict blood vessels and affect local repair. Others say that ice compresses can quickly relieve pain and swelling. My own experience is that if the pain is unbearable, apply it for no more than 15 minutes at a time. Put a towel on it and don’t put it directly on the skin for frostbite. If you can bear it, it’s okay to apply it less. Pressure and elevation are the core steps to eliminate edema.

Many people think that everything will be fine once they get through the days when swelling is the most severe. In fact, this is not the case. Traps during the recovery period are the hardest hit areas that slow down recovery. I know an old man who has been running marathons for 5 years. He got iliotibial band syndrome last year. After two weeks of recovery, he felt no pain. He went straight to run a 30-kilometer long distance. He relapsed on the spot. It took him half a year before he dared to go back to the track. I originally planned to adjust my running posture and add gluteal muscle strength exercises, and I could return to the track in two months. There are two different opinions in the rehabilitation circle here: one insists on the "pain-free principle", and all rehabilitation exercises should be stopped as soon as pain occurs, and must not be carried out forcefully. ； The other school of thought believes that as long as the pain score is within 3 points (out of 10, pain so severe that you need to take painkillers is 10 points), it is tolerable, and appropriate stimulation can speed up repair. For ordinary enthusiasts, I still recommend following the pain-free principle. After all, most people can't tell the difference between the pain of injury and muscle soreness. If there is a rehabilitation practitioner watching, it won't be too late to try the tolerable load. After all, three days slower is better than three months slower.

In addition to the correct degree of rehabilitation training, there is another point that many people overlook: don’t just focus on the injured area. I once had a friend who sprained his knee while playing basketball. He squatted at home for a month, but it still hurt when walking. Later, I asked him to add 2 sets of clam poses to train his gluteus medius every day, and most of it was relieved in a week. He has typical gluteal muscle weakness, and his knees unconsciously buckle in when walking. Even if the knee injury is almost healed, the wrong force exertion mode is still pulling the injured ligaments. How can it be cured quickly? To put it bluntly, injury recovery is like patching a bicycle tire. After you patch the hole, you also need to clean out the glass particles stuck in the rim, otherwise it will leak again within two steps of riding. Oh, by the way, there is also the question about anti-inflammatory drugs that everyone often asks. By the way, sports injuries are mostly caused by aseptic inflammation. Don’t take cephalosporin antibiotics blindly. They are useless and hurt your stomach. If the pain is severe, just take some non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen.

To be honest, I have seen too many people who are looking for the "quickest recovery remedy" after being injured. One day they apply imported ointments and the next day they undergo exorbitantly expensive physical therapy. Instead, they fail to do even the most basic things of not returning to sports early and not rubbing and applying hot compresses. In the end, it becomes a chronic injury, causing pain on cloudy and rainy days. The gain outweighs the gain. The recovery from sports injuries essentially follows the rhythm of the body. It will be faster if you respect its repair rules, and slower if you rush to do it. If you really want to pursue the "fastest", go to the hospital as soon as possible and take a film to confirm the extent of the injury. It is more useful than searching for ten tutorials on the Internet. After all, everyone’s injuries are different. Is there any “quickest method” that is universally applicable?