Sports Injury Treatment

Sports Injury Treatment

Our highly trained clinicians offer a wealth of experience having worked extensively with professional athletes, sports teams, and organisations. This includes supporting Team GB Olympians and Paralympians, as well as holding clinical posts at professional football and rugby clubs (Arsenal FC and Harlequins RC) and at major international sporting events including the Olympics, Commonwealth Games, Wimbledon, and The London Marathon.

This elite-level experience has given us a deep understanding of the complex demands that different sports place on all athletes of all standards and proficiencies, allowing us to diagnose and treat sporting injuries effectively.

Why Choose Acer House Practice?

• Specialist Expertise: Our team of sports medicine practitioners includes sports doctors, physiotherapists, osteopaths, and chiropractors with specialist knowledge. Each clinician possesses advanced postgraduate qualifications and extensive experience in treating athletes of all levels.

• Precision Diagnostics: We combine physical examination with advanced tools like force plate analysis, gait analysis, and functional movement assessments to gain a comprehensive understanding of the biomechanical factors contributing to your injury.

• Advanced Rehabilitation: Drawing on our in-depth assessment findings, we will treat your issue and design a bespoke rehabilitation programme specifically tailored to your specific needs, the type of injury, and the unique demands of your sport. Treatment may include manual therapy techniques, targeted exercise prescription using the latest evidence-based practices, and other specialist procedures.

• Collaborative Strategies for Your Return: We work closely with you, your coaches (if applicable), and your strength and conditioning teams (again, if applicable) to ensure a safe and effective return to competition, or your chosen activity.

• Avoid Repeat Injuries: in the later stages of recovery, we can carry out an athlete profile to identify any strength or power deficits that we can rectify through our in-house experts – or via communication with your sports performance team – so that you can return to your sport in a better condition than when the injury arose.

For example, we regularly treat:

• Runners: The most common injury is probably “runners’ knee” (patellofemoral pain syndrome). We also see patients with IT band syndrome, medial tibial stress syndrome (MTSS), and Achilles tendinopathy.

• Footballers, hockey players, and netballers: Patients often present with acute knee injuries, such as meniscal tears, ligament injuries (e.g ACL or MCL tears), and acute muscle strains (often the hamstring or calf).

• Tennis players: Both amateur and professional players commonly suffer from rotator cuff injuries and tennis elbow.

• Golfers: Patients may have back pain, neck pain or golfers’ elbow.

Whatever the cause, we know the importance of sport and the how it can play a valuable role in helping you to stay physically fit and supporting your mental health. Our focus is to help get you back to your best as quickly as possible.

How do You Assess & Treat Sport Injuries?

If appropriate, further tests might be carried out, such as a running gait analysis on our specialist treadmill which records biometric data such as ground contact time, cadence, and flight time. We may also use video analysis, and possibly compare the results to a running analysis outside of the clinic.

Other diagnostic techniques include functional movement analysis (such as single leg squat or drop landing analysis), strength profiling (which may include specialist equipment such as a dynamometer or force plate use to assess maximal strength of specific muscle groups of the whole kinetic chain).

Once the unique factors have been identified and we have a greater understanding of the cause of the injury, then we can design a targeted rehabilitation programme. Recovery might be supported with hands-on treatment, taping, or customised splints, depending on the condition.

If necessary, we may organise a rapid referral for further investigations, such as an MRI scan, in order to grade injuries and aid in healing and return-to-sport time frames.

We use advanced testing to help avoid injuries recurring. This means we can identify other issues elsewhere in the body and create more advanced conditioning programs to aid in full recovery.