Pulled muscles and twisted ankles are the downside of sports and exercise. Sometimes it鈥檚 hard to know whether to rest an injury, see a doctor or even push on through the pain.
If you are starting a new activity, don鈥檛 be put off by some aches and stiffness during the first couple of days. 鈥淭here鈥檚 discomfort which you get just from using parts you鈥檙e not used to using,鈥� says John Tanner, a musculoskeletal physician at the Bupa Wellness Clinic in London. 鈥淚f it becomes a pain and intrusive, either stop and give it a break, or get some advice on technique.鈥� Around half of regular runners and players of team sports like football get some kind of musculoskeletal injury every year.
When returning to exercise after an injury, transient warm-up pain need not be a sign to stop, as long as it eases off after 5 to 10 minutes. Pain may return on finishing the exercise, or the next morning. 鈥淏ut that鈥檚 no bad thing if after 10 minutes it鈥檚 gone again,鈥� says Martyn Speight, a musculoskeletal physician at the Wharfedale Clinic in Leeds, UK.
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In many sports the most common injury is a sprained ankle. It鈥檚 a problem that often recurs: in the first year after an injury, the risk of suffering a repeat sprain roughly doubles compared with that for previously uninjured people. The risk can be reduced, however, by some simple home exercises using a wobbly platform known as a balance board. In July 2009, a team from the Free University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands showed that using the board for half an hour three times a week for eight weeks halves the risk of a repeat ankle sprain in the first year after injury ().