Year-round athletes train their bodies heavily and have to go to physical therapy, while half of those athletes end up having to quit their sport.
Thanks to a recent survey for Spring 2014, 52.5 percent of male students and 47.5 percent of female students have been treated by a physical therapist
According to Dr. Rich Waldron of TKJ sports in San Rafael, the most common high school sports that rely on physical therapy are baseball, tennis, swimming, girl’s soccer and volleyball.
The overuse of muscles which comes from repeating the same movement every day at practice can lead to serious damage and regular visits to a physical therapist, according to Athletic Trainer Americ Alvarado.
“Don’t play year-round sports, sports are in seasons for a reason. Your body needs rest,” Alvarado said.
If a player feels pain during practice they must sit down, but by that point it is almost always too late and all the doctor can do is prevent any further damage to the muscle or tissue, says Waldron.
Former volleyball player Ruby Rawlinson, who regularly visits TKJ sports, quit after being diagnosed with scoliosis and bulging back disks from too much volleyball.
“The [volleyball] hitters are always turning to one side and you can get really uneven. A lot of people can live with it, but not me,” Rawlinson said.
Volleyball players usually get injuries in their knees or shoulders, according to two-sport, volleyball and basketball, varsity athlete Marguerite Spaethling. She went to physical therapy when the pain of playing a sport caught up with her body and resulted in sciatic nerve pain that ran through her back down to her knees.
“Some doctors talked about surgery, that always freaked me out. If it gets to that point I will obviously have to stop or take a break,” Spaethling said.
Volleyball players tend to injure their knees from repetitive jumping, and shoulders from repetitive hitting. Physical therapy is a big factor to club season and high school season for the year-round players.
Another one of the most common sports where athletes frequently receive physical therapy is baseball. Waldron says that baseball pitchers usually get “thrower’s shoulder” from when the repetition of pitching starts to break down their muscles, therefore injuries are more likely to happen.
“I can’t pitch for all innings like I used to, it’s too painful,” said varsity pitcher Zack Kopstein who injured himself years back and is still affected. “If I want to keep pitching in the future I have to get surgery.”
Similar to Kopstein, Tyler Peck, also a year-long varsity pitcher, has had to go to physical therapy to continue his baseball future. Peck goes to prevent any future injuries and Kopstein went to recover and rehabilitate after a serious injury.
According to Waldron, 40-50 percent of pitchers will get hurt during the season: with nine pitchers on the team, at least four of them will be injured or visit physical therapy.
“We are trying to do a lot of preventative things in our clinic and trying to work with some of the teams and encourage the kids to do exercises so they don’t get hurt and reduce the numbers of injuries,” Waldron said.