Is Osteopathy Necessary for Soccer and Football Players?
Soccer and football are some of the most popular sports worldwide. Due to their dynamic nature, they both carry a high risk of injury — especially to the lower extremities. These injuries can be traumatic or result from overuse of a bone, muscle, or tendon. Ankle sprains, thigh and calf muscle strains, groin pulls, and shin splints are extremely common.
In football, the injury rate is about nine to 35 injuries per 1,000 hours of participation. These numbers are even higher during competitive matches. Even the slightest injury can affect your physical performance and keep you in bed for weeks.
The good news is that osteopathy can help. This treatment method supports healing and improves recovery time while preventing future injuries. Here are some of its key benefits for soccer and football players:
Identify Injury Risk Factors
An osteopath can assess the health of your joints, muscles, and ligaments to identify any weak areas. For example, if you have weak thigh muscles, you’re more likely to experience an injury when playing sports. In this case, the osteopath will recommend a treatment plan that suits your individual needs.
The treatment is hands-on and involves the manipulation of your joints, spine, and soft tissues. It may also require self-help measures and exercises that strengthen your muscles and reduce injury risk. A skilled osteopath can also identify other health problems that contribute to localized pain.
Prevent and Heal Sports Injuries
Football and soccer players are at risk for thigh and hamstring sprains, peroneal tendonitis, hernia, ACL injuries, ITB syndrome, and stress fractures. Back and neck pain are common too. Osteopaths use manual manipulation to help your tissues heal and restore their function. Some also combine this therapy with sports massage and chiropractic care.
Osteopathy isn’t just for athletes. It can also help with headaches and migraines, asthma, digestive complaints, and problems with motor control. This makes it suitable for people of all ages. Plus, it’s non-invasive and has none of the side effects of medication.
Relieve Pain Naturally
One of the primary benefits of osteopathy is sports lies in its ability to relieve pain. This treatment method uses massage, deep pressure, rhythmic stretching, myofascial therapy, and other techniques to stimulate the muscles surrounding your spines and other tissues.
Osteopathy treats the body as a whole. By mobilizing its tissues, it promotes self-healing and addresses the root cause of pain. This alternative treatment method also relieves muscle tension, breaks up scar tissue, and improves blood flow to injured areas.
Young woman’s knee joint being manipulated by osteopathic manual therapist or physician
