How to Care for Muscle Pain

Muscle Pain

(Pulled Muscle; Muscle Strain; Muscle Injury; Muscle Tear)

Muscle pain - no matter how you describe it -  "pulled muscle", "muscle strain", "muscle injury" or "muscle tear" the end result is injury to your muscle resulting in muscle pain, weakness andreduced muscle performance.

How to Care for Muscle Pain?

Muscle pain can be caused by any strain, injury or tear. The most common are the high speed and load muscles such as your hamstrings, thigh (quadriceps), calf, back and biceps.

Muscle tears can range from a mild strain (grade one), moderate strain (grade two) to a severe strain or complete rupture (grade three).

Treatment options vary depending on the severity of your strain or tear.

What are the Characteristics of a Muscle Strain/Tear?

• Muscle tightness
• Bruising
• Weakness
• Inability to fully stretch your injured muscle

What’s the Best Treatment for a Muscle Strain/Tear?

Until you’ve been accurately diagnosed, use the following guidelines:

• Ice and a compression bandage.
• Elevate the region if it is swollen.
• If it’s painful to walk you should be using crutches.
• Reduce your training to a level where you feel no pain.

Seek the advice of your Physiotherapist or Massage Therapist.

What Should You Do Next?

Returning to sport can be easy or complicated depending on the muscle affected. Some muscle tears such as hamstrings are notoriously difficult to get right.

Ideally you should undertake:

• an assessment of your muscle function, core stability and biomechanics to avoid injury recurrence.
• a remedial or sports style massage to ensure that any scar tissue doesn’t clump.
• a muscle rehabilitation program that incorporates components of strength, endurance, flexibility and speed that is specific to your chosen sport.
• a neural tissue dynamics assessment to ensure that no nerve tissue has become entrapped in the scar tissue.
•  application of a heat retainer to the area when you return to sport.
• application ice therapy after any training sessions.

If you suffer a muscle tear which fails to respond after a few days or continues to niggle, please contact PhysioWorks for more specific advice.

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