What Is It?
Acute sports injuries involve a specific traumatic mechanism: muscle strains occur when a muscle is loaded beyond its capacity, particularly during eccentric contraction; ligament sprains involve excessive joint range of motion; stress fractures arise from repetitive bone loading without adequate recovery. Classification by tissue type, grade, and mechanism guides the management approach.
Chronic overuse injuries — tendinopathies, stress reactions, bursitis — develop gradually from cumulative loading that exceeds tissue repair capacity. These are the injuries that "shouldn't still be there" after weeks of rest, and they respond poorly to passive treatment alone.
Common Causes
- "Too much, too soon" — rapid increases in training volume, intensity, or frequency
- Biomechanical inefficiency — movement patterns that distribute load unevenly across tissues
- Muscle imbalances — asymmetries in strength or flexibility increasing injury risk
- Inadequate recovery between sessions — insufficient sleep, nutrition, or de-load periods
- Prior injury with incomplete rehabilitation leaving residual weakness, altered proprioception, and compensatory movement patterns
- Environmental factors — hard surfaces, worn footwear, sudden change of playing surface
How Myotherapy Can Help
- Acute phase — reduce muscle guarding, manage pain, and maintain range of motion through gentle soft tissue techniques and education around load management
- Sub-acute and rehabilitation phase — progressive soft tissue therapy, dry needling for pain modulation and trigger point resolution, exercise rehabilitation targeting the specific deficits identified
- Sport-specific return-to-play programming — graduated loading protocols returning athletes to full training and competition safely
- Tendinopathy management — isometric and isotonic loading protocols (the most evidence-supported intervention for tendon pain)
- Load management education — training diary review, volume and intensity adjustments based on tissue tolerance
Expected Outcomes
Muscle strains: Grade I — 1–2 weeks; Grade II — 4–8 weeks; Grade III — 12+ weeks (may require surgical review). Tendinopathy: significant improvement within 8–12 weeks of progressive loading; full return to sport load capacity at 12–16 weeks. Ligament sprains follow similar graded timelines. Isometric exercise is highly effective for immediate pain reduction during the rehabilitation of tendinopathies (Rio et al., 2015).
Likely Symptom Changes
Acute injuries: pain and swelling typically peak at 24–72 hours post-injury before beginning to resolve. Functional milestones — pain-free walking, jogging, sport-specific movement — occur in a progressive sequence over weeks. Tendinopathies: morning stiffness and post-exercise soreness improve first; loading capacity increases gradually. A temporary flare after exercise is normal in tendinopathy rehabilitation and should resolve within 24 hours.
References
- Meeuwisse, W. H., et al. (2007). A dynamic model of etiology in sport injury: The recursive nature of risk and causation. Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine, 17(3), 215–219.
- Rio, E., et al. (2015). Isometric exercise induces analgesia and reduces inhibition in patellar tendinopathy. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 49(19), 1277–1283.
- Docking, S. I., & Cook, J. (2019). How do tendons adapt? Going beyond tissue responses to understand positive adaptation and pathology development. Journal of Musculoskeletal and Neuronal Interactions, 19(3), 300–310.
Managing a sports injury or trying to prevent recurrence?
Shaun works with runners, cyclists, triathletes, and team sport athletes across Brisbane.