A sports injury is easy to sustain. After all, all you need to do is move slightly wrong or go a bit too fast and fall over, or be victim to an aggressive tackle. It could happen to anyone who likes to stay fit and take part in social sporting activities.
As such, it’s best to look into the ways to speed up the recovery process and make sure you’re not laid up for too long after an injury. Prevention is the best care, which means adopting good technique and keeping your mind sharp, but accidents do happen! Here are our healing after a sports injury to the leg, 3 top tips to keep in mind.
1. Eat Muscle Building Foods
Most commonly, a sports injury tends to be muscle related. A pulled or torn muscle are the most typical ailments a patient will bring in after working out or playing sports. If a similar injury has happened to you, changing your diet for the next few weeks is one of the best ways to heal in a reasonable time.
Foods such as leafy greens and legumes, as well as meats rich in Omega 3 like fish, are three top foods to add to your plate. These foods promote muscle growth, which means they’re good for accelerating healing as well. You can then follow these foods with typical protein consumption – but remember, you’re not going to get back on your feet until you’re fully healed!
It is now recognised widely that the plant based diet is a great way to go in terms of keeping the body and bones healthy, which can ultimately help prevent injuries of all kinds. Long gone are the days when we believed that our only source of that all important calcium for healthy bones must come from dairy products and milk specifically.
In fact, getting your calcium from plant foods is now considered optimal and there are many plant sources of calcium to cover your bases.
These include:-
- Leafy greens
- Oranges
- Butternut squash
- Tahini
- Figs
- Sesame seeds
- Tofu
However, just getting adequate amounts of calcium into your diet isn’t the whole story when it comes to keeping bones strong. You also need good amounts of other vitamins and minerals to work alongside the calcium and to also aid absorption.
These include:-
- Iron
- Magnesium
- Phosphorus
- Potassium
- Zinc
All of the above vitamins and minerals are abundant if you eat a whole foods plant based diet, specifically. You should not miss out on any key nutrients when you eat whole plant foods without added refined oils and refined carbs. Think the whole olive as opposed to the olive oil, or the whole grain as opposed to its white and refined counterpart.
Eating this way you are sure to be getting all the proper nutrition you need for not just bone health to prevent further sports injuries to the legs or anywhere else in your body, but also to keep you in over-all great health. Injuries of any kind are way less likely when you are in good physical health with adequate muscles mass on your body and strong bones.
2. Visit A Podiatrist
A podiatrist is the best medical professional to visit when you’ve had a foot or lower leg injury. Indeed, the best podiatrists will focus on both areas of the body to ensure no element of the injury is overlooked. Once you’ve been through a consultation, you should have a defined recovery plan to follow.
You might be wary of seeing a podiatrist, thanks to the associated high cost, but if the injury is taking a while to heal and the pain has not subsided, this is a worthy appointment to make. Consider it if you’re at a stage in your recovery where you’ve missed out on a lot of workout sessions. You can stretch at a time like this to keep muscles flexible and supple, but it’s not great to miss out on the strengthening activities you’re used to.
3. Rest
You should never rush back to the exercise you like to do after you’ve been injured. After all, you could make the issue much worse, and even sustain further injuries from needing to overcompensate elsewhere throughout the body. So try to rest right now, until your leg, ankle, or foot feels better.
During this time, try to keep the foot elevated, and ice the area multiple times a day. Like we mentioned earlier, you can also try small, stretching exercises to build up your resistance, but check with your doctor first of all.
It also pays not to push yourself too hard when you do get back on your feet. Take your time to get back to exercise and do so only under the advise of your professional. If you feel any pain or discomfort then slow down or stop altogether until you have the go ahead to carry on. Re-injuring your injury could cost you many more months or recuperation and could even make the injury worse than before.
Listen to your body…
Always listen to your body when you go back to your usual exercise regime. Listening to your own body and pain signals is the best way to judge where you’re at in the healing process. If your gut instinct is you’re not ready to use your injured leg again, then stop and rest more. Your body will tell you when you’re ready to get back to exercise and you should listen to it.
Healing differs from person to person. If you’re dealing with a sports injury to the lower body, follow these tips to help the recovery process.
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