Sports Injuries: A Self-Help Guide

Vivian Grisogono passes on years of experience as a sports participant and physiotherapist, making this book, now completely updated, the most effective guide to coping with injuries and getting back to sport.

Indispensable reading for not only sportsmen and women of all types and ages, but also to coaches, PE teachers, and medical and paramedical practitioners interested in sports injuries. Injuries are described geographically, from foot to neck, and then down the arm.

The causes of injury are explained, to help you understand how and why a particular injury occurs, whether it's a sudden traumatic injury like the sprinter's hamstring tear or the squash player's Achilles tendon rupture, or a gradual overuse injury like tennis elbow or runner's shin soreness.

Self-diagnosis is extremely difficult, and this book aims to help the reader to identify the possible causes of pain, in order to present a clear picture of the problem to a medical practitioner, so that they can make a speedy and accurate diagnosis. The first-aid and immediate self-help measures you should take for any injury, before you manage to see a medical practitioner, are described.

Following diagnosis, rehabilitation principles for each injury are given, from the very early stages of recovery, through to your return to sport.

For tendon and muscle injuries, the progression starts with passive stretching for flexibility, then you re-strengthen the injured muscle group, until the final stage when you work the muscles in co-ordination with the surrounding muscles.

For joint injuries, you have to regain stability through strengthening exercises, then gradually mobilize the injured joint, before moving into the final phase of coordinating exercises.

All the specific exercises for achieving these aspects of recovery are illustrated in detail, for each injury throughout the body.