Avoiding injuries as school sports seasons begin

WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) – As students head back to school and sport seasons begin, a local physical therapist shared some tips to help prevent injury.

Morgan Heffernan, with Novant Health, spoke with WECT about some simple steps athletes can take to ensure their bodies are ready for physical activity.

“… there’s a big difference between pre and post stretching that I don’t think people are aware of,” Heffernan said. “They think of the generic static holds as far as stretching. But in actuality, before an activity, you want to make sure that you’re doing what we call dynamic movement, and so that includes, you know, making sure that each joint of your body has been moved through its full range; that you’re doing drills that are a little bit more sports specific, and even maybe going out for a small little jog to get your heart pumping and get blood to all the parts of your body.”

While injuries are most often associated with contact sports, Heffernan says she sees a lot of patients from non-contact and individual sports.

“… it actually might surprise you, but the most injuries that I see aren’t the, you know, contact sports, like football, lacrosse, hockey, you know, it’s actually more of my endurance athletes, like runners, swimmers, cyclists,” she explained. “You know, those athletes are doing repetitive motions, they’re doing the same thing over and over again for usually thousands of repetitions. And if the body is not prepared to do that, or if there’s some sort of break down in that cycle, it’s going to show through.”

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