Sports Medicine & Rehab

Soft tissue

Soft tissue therapies can include myofascial release, fascial techniques, and sports taping. There are many brand names and specific techniques on the market today. No matter the name on the box, the bottom line is that it is integral for sports providers to address both the muscular and fascial issues that contribute to the injury to fully resolve it, and soft tissue therapy is the absolute best way to do that. Most commonly, our treatment involves manual therapy using both instruments and hands-on techniques. We typically follow soft tissue treatments with Kinesiotaping to the affected area. Kinesiotape provides support, muscle activation, and significantly decreases healing time by increasing blood circulation to the area that has been injured. All of our doctors have taken advanced Kinesiotaping classes, and are well-read regarding the specific techniques that will help our patients heal. Our preferred brand of Kinesiotape is RockTape because we find it has the best combination of great hold with less skin irritation.

Adjusting

Because you can’t fix the knee by adjusting the spine, extremity adjusting, or moving joints outside of the spine, is critical to the healing process in a related sports injury. Our doctors at League City Spine & Sports Medicine are well versed in extremity adjustments. All of our doctors have taken advanced classes in extremity adjusting, and Dr. Heintz was even the lead instructor for extremity adjusting at Texas Chiropractic College for six years.

Rehabilitation

Once we have addressed the soft tissue component of your injury, a specific rehabilitation program must be put in place to strengthen and completely heal that muscle. Rehabilitation does not need to be expensive or involve costly equipment, but it absolutely must be specific to the injury. Each exercise must address a specific component of your injury to ensure complete healing. To complete the healing process, you will be given a protocol that will include stretching, strengthening exercises, and often foam rolling or the Rock Flossing technique, specific to your injury. Our protocol has intensive instructions for your benefit, and if you have any questions surrounding your rehabilitation, we have a team of staff members that are always available to help.

Nutrition

The final element, and often the most overlooked aspect, in sports healing, is nutrition. Your body needs the basic building blocks to heal properly, and those integral building blocks come from what you are fueling your body with. While each case is different, some of the most commonly utilized sports nutrition products are branch chain amino acids to promote muscle healing, essential fatty acids to reduce inflammation, and multivitamins with minerals to ensure collagen formation. Please consult our main nutrition page for more details.

Sports Medicine

Two of the significant differences between athletes and non-athletes when it comes to treatment are treatment time expectations and their activity level before being injured. The biggest question that an athlete has typically is not if we can get them better, but how fast we can do it. For example, we once had an athlete present to our office with an acute ankle sprain on just four days before their planned MS 150 race. Now, while this is not a normal response, through very aggressive treatment, nutrition, and a lot of compliance on the patient’s part, he was able to make that ride. Athletes have a higher activity level before their injuries than the average population, and it is usually a massive part of their everyday lifestyles. We understand this at League City Spine & Sports Medicine, and our doctors will make sure that your day-to-day lifestyle isn’t completely lost after a sports-related injury. A lot of providers make the mistake of immediately asking for rest when, for most damages, a reduction in training rather than complete rest is often the most viable option.

We have bucket loads of experience treating active athletes as our doctors currently provide medical care for members of the Houston Dynamo, Houston Dash, and American Combative Systems. If you are an athlete, or the family member of one in League City, Webster, Friendswood, Clear Lake, Dickinson, or Nassau Bay area and would like help with injury prevention, or have a sports-related injury, please do not hesitate to call us at @ 281-332-3428.