Healing three common injuries: tendonitis, pulled muscles, and sprains

If you’re an athlete, chances are you’ve dealt with an injury.

For all the benefits of exercise, it comes with risks, and it can be tough to avoid the most common injuries: sprains, pulled muscles and tendons (also known as strains), and tendonitis.

Of course, those three concerns can affect many different areas of the body. Within those broad categories, specific injuries that affect a large number of individuals include ankle sprains, hamstring and groin strains, and tendonitis of the knee and elbow, according to WebMD.

Recovering from even a seemingly minor strain or sprain can be time-consuming and frustrating; if you’re an active person, you’ll want to get back out there right away! To make sure that you give yourself the best chance of recovering and don’t cause further injury, follow a few key guidelines from medical experts.

Sprains

A sprain to the ankle, knee or shoulder means that you’ve partially torn a ligament in that joint.

While sprains can range from minor tears to almost complete severing of a ligament, the result is that you’ll often have a thoroughly swollen joint and some pain. This can happen if you turn quickly in soccer or basketball, “roll” your ankle while running, or jerk your knee or shoulder suddenly while cycling or swimming.

According to the Mayo Clinic, minor to moderate sprains can usually be treated at home by using the traditional “RICE” method: rest, ice, compress and elevate. You can also take anti-inflammatory drugs to reduce swelling.

Contrary to popular wisdom, as long as the sprain isn’t excessively painful, the Mayo Clinic recommends gently using the joint a day or two after the injury. That doesn’t mean going out and running a 10k on your sprained ankle, but walking and carefully massaging the joint may help to move fluid out of the area and improve mobility.

If treated correctly, sprains should show improvement after two or three days, though it can take several weeks for the ligament to heal completely.

Strains: Pulled Muscles and Tendons

Like sprains, strains generally happen when you move a limb or joint suddenly while exercising. Rather than tearing a ligament, however, strains are tears to the muscle or tendon fibers.

You might strain a muscle by sprinting without properly warming up, lifting too heavy of a weight, or twisting a shoulder in volleyball or rowing.

While the initial treatment for strains is similar to that for sprains—rest, ice, compress and elevate—you may need to immobilize the muscle or tendon for a longer period of time than for which you’d immobilize a sprained ligament. Especially if you pull a large muscle, like a hamstring or groin, the fibers will need several days to begin repairing. During that time, avoid using the muscle more than necessary.

As the affected area feels better, gentle massaging and stretching are wise in order to keep the muscle from atrophying. Full recovery time will depend on the severity of the injury: it could be two weeks or two months, if you’ve injured a large muscle badly, so you may want to consider physical therapy to help yourself regain proper mobility and use.

Additionally, if you sustain a serious strain, you may be in danger of trying to compensate with the opposing limb, which can cause additional injury. To avoid that, start exercise slowly and don’t try to complete activities that cause any more than slight pain; even if you don’t think you’re favoring the “healthy” limb, it’s easy to do unconsciously.

Tendonitis

Tendonitis, or inflammation of tendons, is what many people call an “overuse” injury.

Essentially, the tendons that connect your muscles can become irritated if you repeat a similar motion over and over. There are a plethora of names for specific types of tendonitis, including runner’s knee, tennis or golf elbow, and swimmer’s shoulder. This type of common injury is characterized by pain and tenderness at the joint; usually, there’s not much swelling, though a little bit is possible.

Unfortunately, many serious athletes are plagued by tendonitis. Both to avoid and treat the condition, it’s wise to build up stabilizer muscles around the affected joint, since that will take some of the pressure off of the muscle and corresponding tendon. Additionally, if and when a tendon flares up, using ice and anti-inflammatory medications can help to calm it down.

If you’re dealing with tendonitis on a consistent basis, it’s important to incorporate a good warm up and cool down into your workouts, as well as working on your athletic technique to avoid additional inflammation.

Of course, consulting a medical professional may be key to recovery from any of these common injuries. You should seek advice if you’re concerned that you’ve done more than sustain a minor sprain, strain, or case of tendonitis, or if pain persists beyond a few days.