A sports hernia involves weakening or tearing in the muscles, tendons, or ligaments of the lower abdominal and groin area that leads to chronic pain, often caused by repetitive and forceful twisting of your pelvis. Sports hernias are most seen in soccer players due to the dynamic nature of the sport, rapid changes in direction, intense sprinting, and repetitive twisting and turning when kicking. Physical therapy can help athletes manage and recover from a sports hernia, addressing underlying muscular imbalances that contributed to injury through targeted exercise, core strengthening, and manual therapy.

Core strengthening has numerous benefits for an athlete’s fitness level and sports performance. The core muscles are the foundation of movement for the entire body, comprised of the abdominals, back muscles, diaphragm, hip muscles, and pelvic floor muscles. A physical therapist can assess an athlete’s core strength and design a core strengthening exercise program to enhance the strength, control, and endurance of their core muscles. Mangiarelli Rehabilitation physical therapy assistant Patti demonstrates several advanced core strengthening exercises on the blog.

Basketball is a high-intensity sport, requiring running multi-directionally, shuffling the body laterally, jumping, and quick starts and stops. The intense physical demands of basketball heighten the risk of injury. Physical therapists work with basketball players to not only prepare them for a successful basketball season through a customized strength and conditioning program, but also address any in-season injuries and help athletes regain strength, mobility, balance, and function for a safe return to sport.

Improving an athlete’s sports performance with physical therapy can reduce the incidence of sports-related injuries by improving sports technique and body mechanics as well as enhancing the athlete’s strength, mobility, and power. Physical therapists can create a personalized sports conditioning and performance program to help athletes perform at an elite level. Check out 10 ways physical therapy can improve your sports performance!

Fall sports conditioning serves as a foundation upon which the sports season’s success is built and can help to reduce the number of in-season injuries. Fall sports conditioning involves a program of weight training and aerobic sport-specific conditioning that allows the athlete to slowly acclimate to the demands of the sport by gradually increasing the intensity and volume of their training over time. Check out our 8 tips for safe fall sports conditioning!

Agility training is a critical component of a comprehensive sports training program. Agility training involves a set of progressive exercises to improve an athlete’s agility, which is the ability to accelerate, decelerate, change direction, and react swiftly in multiple directions in response to unpredictable situations on the competitive sports field. Agility training is extremely beneficial for athletes of all sports, requiring strength, flexibility, and stamina to improve the body’s adaptability and reaction time to a stimulus or movement.