Summer is here and that means it’s the perfect time to get more active. Unfortunately, the downside of that is that you may encounter some injuries along the way. Learning how to recover from a sports injury is a critical point for any athlete. This year, don’t have to sit the bench or stop your workouts for any longer than necessary by learning how to make an injury recovery faster.
To help you out, we’re talking about how to recover from sports injuries and how some post workout recovery techniques may even help prevent those injuries in the first place.
How to Recover From a Sports Injury Faster With Safety in Mind
While we hope that you never need any of these tips, chances are you will at some point if you lead an active lifestyle. Whether you’re working out or playing on the field, sports injuries do happen. If you do find yourself hurt, knowing steps for how to make an injury recovery faster can help get you back on your feet in no time!
Some of our tips for how to recover from sports injury pain faster are:
- Use the R.I.C.E. method
- Eat foods to help heal your sports injury
- Stay active within your limitations
- Get a massage to keep your body loose and heal faster
How to Recover From Sports Injury Pain Using the R.I.C.E. Method
The first step in learning how to recover from sports injury pain is that an injury should most often be treated with the R.I.C.E. method right away. Typical sports injuries that may benefit from the R.I.C.E. method include soft tissue injury like sprains or pulled muscles. Treating these occurrences immediately is a key part in how to make an injury recover faster, reduce pain, and control inflammation.
What is the R.I.C.E. method? The acronym R.I.C.E stands for:
- Rest
- Ice
- Compression
- Elevation
Rest
This is crucial for the first 24-48 hours after a sports injury occurs and a key element for how to recover from sports injuries more quickly. Avoid putting any weight on the injured area if possible. The aim of this part of the sports injury treatment is to prevent any further damage from occurring before the body can begin the healing process.
Ice
Next up on how to make an injury recover faster using the R.I.C.E method is to apply ice 4 to 8 times a day. Each application should last about 15 to 20 minutes with at least 2 hours in between. This is meant to help reduce swelling and inflammation, alleviate pain, and prevent muscle spasms.
When applying ice it’s important that you don’t apply it directly to the skin as this could cause permanent damage to the tissue. Instead, wrap the ice pack in a light, absorbent towel then apply it against the injury area.
Compression
After 48 hours or so, the third step in the R.I.C.E. method that’s useful for how to recover from sports injuries more quickly is compression. Wrap the affected area with an elastic medical bandage and secure it. This is intended to help prevent excess swelling and inflammation, which may be very painful and counterproductive to the healing process.
It’s important to note that the medical bandage should be tight, but not cutting off circulation or interrupting your blood flow. If the skin beneath the bandage begins to go numb or feel tingly, take the bandage off and wrap it again slightly more loosely.
Elevation
The last part of the R.I.C.E. method for helping an injury recover faster is with elevation. This is also meant to prevent pain, swelling, or throbbing as the body begins to heal itself. When elevating the injured area, the goal is to have it above your heart level as often as possible. This can easily be achieved by propping it on pillows or even by reclining into the zero gravity position if you’re using a massage chair with zero gravity reclining capability while recovering from a sports injury.
In recent years, there’s been an additional step added to the beginning of this method for protection, thereby renaming it as the P.R.I.C.E. method. When it comes to protection, the point is to prevent further harm from coming to your injured area whether by means of alleviating pressure from it (such as using crutches for a leg injury) or immobilizing the area with a splint.
Foods That Help Healing Sports Injuries
Another way that may help when learning how to recover from sports injury occurrences more quickly is eating foods that help healing. You may also add natural supplements to help, as well. Some foods that help healing sports injuries are:
- Citrus fruits and dark leafy greens high in vitamin C for collagen production to heal tissues
- Protein-rich foods like meat and fish to help rebuild injured muscles
- Salmon, chia seeds, and walnuts for Omega-3 fatty acids to reduce inflammation
Eating these foods may already be part of your diet if you lead an active, healthy lifestyle. While they won’t heal you overnight, they may help you when learning how to make an injury recover faster so be sure to eat properly!
Getting a Sports Injury Massage
Sports injury massage plays an important role as part of learning how to make an injury recover faster and having a massage chair at home makes that available to you with ease.
One of the biggest massage chair benefits for athletes with a sports injury is how massage may help improve blood circulation and relax the muscles. Massage chair features like heat therapy also help enhance the benefits of massage chairs for health by increasing the efficiency at which oxygen and nutrient-rich blood is delivered to damaged tissue, potentially speeding up the healing process. Other benefits of heat therapy include pain relief, reduced inflammation, and the possibility of improving mental health, as well.
Learning how to choose the best massage chair to buy is a very important part of learning how to recover from sports injury occurrences more quickly. For example, using an L-track massage chair may be most helpful for athletes experiencing leg or hamstring injuries. In these chairs, the massage rollers continue beyond the lower back and to the glutes and top of the hamstrings for a more thoroughly full body massage experience that could certainly help prevent muscle tension in injured legs.
Using a luxury massage chair also helps increase flexibility and mobility during the recovery process. All too often the problem when learning how to recover from a sports injury is that athletes may stop, not take enough precautions for their flexibility, potentially resulting in a permanent reduction. While the main goal of physical rehabilitation is to increase strength and flexibility, it often ends before the area has been returned to its full pre-injury state.
Other massage chair features like AI massage may help when figuring out how to make an injury recover faster, too. A luxury AI massage chair uses AI technology and two types of advanced body scanning and AI technology to learn more about your body and its needs as it’s used. These scans use their readings to analyze the intensity of your emotional state as well as your stress levels. It can make a huge difference in your massage experience and makes a massage chair worth buying for sure!
Lastly, when it comes to sports injury massage, massage chairs not only give you the opportunity to enhance your healing process from the comfort of home but they also allow you to choose different types of massage therapy. The most commonly used sport injury massage types are Swedish massage and deep tissue massage. With a luxury massage chair model, you can change techniques to meet your needs without worrying about the level of skill from a human massage therapist.
How to Make an Injury Recover Faster By Staying Active
While it’s undeniably important to rest and relax while you recover from an injury, part of how to recover from a sports injury more quickly also relies on staying active within your limitations. This means doing things like getting up and stretching to increase mobility and flexibility, taking a walk to get the blood pumping if you’re able, or even possibly working out at a reduced level while you’re healing.
The most important part of this, however, is knowing your limitations. If you overdo it, you may accidentally cause more harm than good and could potentially undo the healing progress you’ve made. Start small with range of motion exercises as part of learning how to recover from sports injuries faster and see how the rest progresses from there.
As you can see, there’s a lot that goes into learning how to recover from sports injury occurrences more quickly. The most important part is that you treat the injured area immediately to prevent further damage. To help your continued recovery, eat healthy foods, follow the R.I.C.E. method, keep active, and choose a massage chair to enhance your physical and mental health. If you take proper care of your body you’ll be back up and out there before you know it!
Want to know more about the benefits of massage chairs? Check out these resources and see how they fit into every lifestyle:
