I would like to share one client injury.
At the Vphysiiomend Sports Physiotherapy care, we often work with people who have pain and debilitating injuries. We work with athletes to enhance their performance and their potential. These athletes rely on their athletic ability to make a living and to fuel their passion.

A lot of athletes get injured when they overload their body too much, too often, through training and competition. Sometimes they overload their body through too much movement and too much loading in a certain area.
In clinic this week, I worked with a tennis player who was playing since 8 years. He had unfortunately suffered a small calf injury previously and was facing a fight against the clock to be fit.

PAIN HISTORY: 

When getting some history from him, he mentioned having recent hip flexor problems on the opposite side to his injured calf. He also mentioned having an ankle issue on the same side as his hip flexor issue. These were recent problems all cropping up in the past weeks and months, while he had also had longstanding elbow issues and a neck problem.
In preparation, he had been to selects of different doctors and therapists, his calf had been treated with laser, ice and soft tissue work.

ON ASSESSMENT:

Upon assessing him, his weight was shifted away from the injured calf and he had 6/10 pain on hopping. Upon muscle testing his injured calf was hypertonic. This is a protective response when the brain up regulates a muscle and causes a high increase in tons of the muscle. His calf muscle would not inhibit like muscles normally should. Instead it presented as hypertonic and strong in the clear. Without being able to check for hypertonicity, I would previously have assumed that this was a strong calf and that it was functioning normally. A set of paired pain receptors was identified as the cause of the hypertonicity and once this was cleared his calf muscle now inhibited normally. We went to work assessing his calf and surrounding muscles for issues and found some interesting dysfunction.

DIAGNOSIS:

He had a thermal receptor problem at the injury site. Thermal receptors often pair with pain receptors and he was no different, cold receptor paired with a slow pain receptor. Interestingly when we have a trauma within the body it can be very easy to create dysfunction in the area. It is likely that icing his painful injured calf had caused a dysfunctional thermal receptor issue here.
He had inhibition in his calf, hamstrings, glute, back extensors and neck extensors in the clear. These muscles were all part of a Long Kinematic Chain that spanned from his big toe to his his occiput. Every time the dysfunctional receptor was stimulated at his big toe, this entire chain of muscle became inhibited.

He also had inhibited biceps, anterior deltoid, pec major, abdominals, hip flexors, lateral quads and peroneal muscles on the side of his hip flexor problem. The primary issue with this chain was stemming from his previously injured ankle ligaments. As soon as they were stimulated he experienced inhibition in the above mentioned muscles. Having previously had elbow issues and indeed a surgery to his elbow, he still had some remaining dysfunction there that linked to his hip flexor issues and his ankle issues.

REHABILITATION:

We cleared these dysfunctions and then gently loaded him up with some be spoke Anatomy in Motion gait phase movements. This allowed his weight to shift gently back to feeling evenly balanced on both legs, and his pain on hopping had reduced to 1/10. He played yesterday and sailed through it with no problems, winning comfortably. He got in touch with us today to say 'Thank You' for helping him and that his calf was feeling awesome and that it felt effortless for him to cover the ground to make shots during his match. He personally felt good and VERY happy, optimized and fully functioning! The bunch of chocolates and sweets made me feel good.