Physical Therapy: Olympic Injuries

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• Behind Every Olympic Athlete Is A Physical Therapist

  The Olympic Games are an intense event, for spectators and athletes alike. It’s heartbreaking to see an athlete suffer an injury that can eliminate them from a contest that they have spent years training for.

  It is a delicate balance between training at the level required to make it to the Olympics and staying healthy in the process.

  Bill Boissonnault, a professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and senior physical therapist at the Spine Center Physical Therapy Clinic of the UW Hospital and Clinics, said that “a lot of injury prevention comes into play” in the years leading up to the event, and especially in the ramping-up period just before the games.

  Boissonnault said that to avoid injury during training, the emphasis is on “flexibility, strength and technique. And once the games begin, it heats up even more so.” He shared that he recently read about the physical therapists who were at the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010.

  “Their schedule started at 5:30 a.m. or 6 a.m., and went until 11:30 p.m. or midnight treating new injuries, or rehabbing old injuries. Trying to piece people together so they can continue to compete,” he said.

  Just as athletes specialize in certain events, there are physical therapists who focus on working with athletes in a particular sport or discipline.

  Lori Thein Brody, a physical therapist and athletic trainer with the UW Sports Medicine and Spine Center, said that when there are big events for a particular sport, those physical therapists are there. They are “working with the athletes, doing preventative stuff, helping them get warmed up and prepared before their matches,” she said.

  Brody, who is also the graduate program director for the Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions in Provo, Utah, added that “every high level athlete has their own routine of things that they feel like they want and need prior to a big competition. Whether that’s a certain kind of taping, whether it’s a certain kind of massage, whether it’s a certain kind of stretching … we’re there to provide those services.”

  After the event, there is certainly a need for support from a physical therapist if the athlete has been injured. But even if the competition goes as planned, Brody said that athletes will have their own recovery plan. That can be tricky in a situation like the Olympics, where there may be qualifying heats and then the actual event soon after.

  To help the athletes through that condensed timeline, Brody said that physical therapists “do whatever they need. Maybe they need icing, maybe they need stretching, maybe they need some joint mobilization or manipulation for their pelvis, or their spine” she said. “So, we provide whatever service that athlete needs.”

  It’s really a group effort. Brody said that “at that stage of the game, we’re really a team working with them. They know their bodies so well that for us to say, ‘Oh, you need this,’ really doesn’t make sense at that level.”