What is the difference between a sports therapist and a physiotherapist?

Prevention is the best form of defence!

Aberdeen Sports Therapy and what is does for you

As we all know, a key part of staying fit and healthy is exercise – whether this is sports such as football or running, or frequent gym sessions. Whatever your exercise of choice is, ensuring that you are exercising safely is paramount and something that is often overlooked until you actually hurt yourself. 

Sports injuries can be caused by a wide variety of things from pushing yourself too hard, not warming up correctly or simply misplaced footing and suffering an accident! When these injuries happen, it is important that you seek the right help and rest until you are fully healed. This is where your sports therapist Aberdeen can step into help. Our aim is to provide care for sport injuries and to help you recover as quickly and as fully as possible. 

What does a sports therapist do?

Aberdeen sports therapy utilises the principles of sport science with various techniques to fully rehabilitate those with sporting injuries. As well as helping you to recover from injury, your sports therapist Aberdeen will use their skills to work with you to optimise your overall performance and help to prevent such injuries from occurring in the future. At a glance, your sports therapist in Aberdeen can: 

• Use sport science to ensure that you are fully prepared with injury prevention programmes. 
• Create, plan and implement injury rehabilitation programmes 
• Carry out sports massages if required
• Provide immediate care for sports injuries
• Assess and treat injuries and refer them to specialists if required. 

Aberdeen sports therapy isn’t just about the immediate treatment of sports injuries. A customised therapy programme can help customers to return to their physical level prior to injury and encourage positive lifestyle changes to help prevent further injury and improve overall health.  

What treatments can sports therapists give?

• Sports massage – this is very different from a spa massage! Your sports therapist, Aberdeen, will focus on a single area and manipulate the soft tissue in order to alleviate pain, elevate the muscle and prevent further injury. 
• Taping – sometimes called strapping, this is the process of bandaging a specific area to relieve pain in weaker areas such as ankles, wrists and shoulders. Compression bandages can also be used to limit the amount of swelling. 
• Strength and conditioning – this is vital to promote flexibility, speed, and endurance and will help increase power and lower the risk of injury during practice. With Aberdeen sports therapy, our trained rehabilitators will work closely with you to develop a personal training programme to target core muscles effectively and make adjustments to your plan as you go along. 
• Stretching programmes – tailored exercises to be prescribed for when you are at home to assist with injury rehabilitation and to prevent further injuries. 

Benefits of Sports Physical Therapy, Aberdeen

1. Immediate pain relief – whilst we will do everything we can to help prevent injuries, accidents do happen! If you already have a plan in place then we can help you with a speedy recovery. However, if you don’t you can still use Aberdeen sports therapy to aid with your healing and make sure that you are recovering correctly. 
2. Avoid Surgery – if you try and simply rest for a couple of days after injury and plan to get straight back into exercise you could end up doing more damage. With our qualified sports therapist, Aberdeen, you will get qualified and expert advice to make sure that you return to your peak fitness as quickly as possible. 
3. Relaxation – a proper cool down after an intense exercise session is just as important as the warm up. Sports therapy and massages are crucial for athletes as it helps them to unwind after strenuous exercise. By using sports physical therapy in Aberdeen, you can help the muscles relax and regain energy via heat generated, stretching and circulation. 
4. Prevention – Whilst is it most common to seek a sports therapist in Aberdeen following an injury, it is also important to know that they can create a specifically tailored programme to help prevent further injury. With comprehensive exercises in place, we can focus on maintaining muscle strength and endurance and help lessen the chances of developing strains, stresses, muscle cramps and torn ligaments. 

What is the difference between a sports therapist and a physiotherapist?

A sports therapist is a relatively new title as it was only created about 25 years ago, so it is no wonder that there is confusion about what it actually is and the differences it has to physiotherapists. Whilst the practices are fundamentally the same, with both being highly skilled and experienced to treat your injury, it basically comes down to training and approach.

Both physiotherapists and sports therapists are highly educated in dealing with musculoskeletal disorders, rehabilitation, treating immediate pain through hands-on treatment and generally educating patients to help prevent further injury. 

They can both: 

• Deliver personal and specifically tailored plans.
• Teach patients how to reduce pain, and in most cases how to manage chronic and ongoing illnesses.
• Educate patients in how to stay fit and healthy.
• Implement rehabilitation programmes to get you back to daily life and tasks.

Below is a brief summary of the key differences:

So, while there doesn’t appear to be much difference in terms of background and techniques, if it is a sports related injury a sports therapist would be best qualified to assess and rehabilitate due to their training and background. If you have a sports related injury, please get in touch with one of our highly experienced and qualified sports therapists, Aberdeen to get your consultation booked. We will have you back on your feet in no time. 

Can a Sports Therapist Diagnose?

Of course we can diagnose! Following an assessment from our experienced sports therapist in Aberdeen, we are able to diagnose and help to treat a wide range of aches, pains and injuries. At Toro Blanco we have a great deal of experience in treating sports injuries with a combination of physio-based activity, sports massages and other therapy methods. All of our Aberdeen sports therapy rehabilitators are carefully trained and highly skilled to be able to use a complete approach when looking after your injury. Following the latest tried and tested techniques, we will work closely with you to make sure that you are feeling fighting fit as quickly as possible.