Sports medicine clinics which specialize in athletic health care are becoming an important group in the health care industry, but what you may not know is that you don’t have to be an athlete to take advantage of the services offered by these clinics. Here are a few reasons why non-athletes may benefit from sports medicine clinics:
- Physical therapy clinics offer a variety of services for people who need help recovering after a major surgery, illness, or accident. It doesn’t matter if you tear your Achilles Tendon from playing rugby or from falling down the stairs — it’s the same tendon in both cases, and an injury is an injury, no matter how it happens. Sports medicine clinics are valuable when treating injuries like these because the specialists are experienced and can provide a variety of physical therapy exercises which are targeted toward a specific area of the body.
- Physical therapy exercises (predictably) include exercising, but it’s important to note that they aren’t intended to cause more physical pain. Sports medicine programs aren’t like high school football practice, where the mantra “Pain is gain!” is the only phrase that matters. Physical therapy exercises often include stretching, walking, and building up core muscles slowly — in other words, specialists want to help your body heal by using low-stress physical exercises.
- The sports medicine industry employs about 140,000 people in the U.S., and these people are passionate about helping people become — and stay — as mobile as possible. It doesn’t matter if you want to train for a 10K race or if you’re just having trouble walking down your driveway — just living requires a certain amount of mobility and activity, and the specialists who work at sports medicine clinics know that a happy life depends on positive physical health, for athletes and non-athletes alike.
Many doctors are already aware that these clinics offer valuable physical therapy exercises for even the most non-athletic person, so if you think that you might benefit from these programs, make sure to talk to your doctor about finding the right program for you. It’s never too late to take control of your physical fitness!