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Disc Golf Injuries

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The most common disc golf injuries include soft tissue injuries such as pulled muscles (strains), ligament tears (sprains), meniscal tears, tendinitis/tendinosis, and nerve injuries. (Nelson et al, 2015)

Although it is a non-contact sport, many injuries occur due to the rotational forces put on the body. Due to these rotational forces, the most common areas injured include the elbow (46%), shoulder (43.1%), back (30.8%), knee (28.1%) and ankle (21.2%) (Nelson et al, 2015).

The repetitive and rotational nature of the sport can also cause overuse injuries to occur such as elbow soreness, rotator cuff breakdown, meniscus tears and low back soreness.

These injuries according to Nelson et al, 2015, led to 57.6% percent of participants having a reduction in activities of daily living (ADLs) such as moving around the house, dressing, bathing, eating, chores, and other self-care. They also reported that disc golf injuries affected 51% of the people and decreased their ability to enjoy their recreational and sporting activities. 34.5% of the surveyed people reported that their work duties were affected as well.

Types of Disc Golf Injuries

There are two types of injuries that occur in disc golf:

1. Traumatic disc golf injuries: These include getting hit in the head, spraining your ankle after stepping in an unseen hole or fracturing a bone on an aggressive drive.

2. Overuse injuries: This is your typical arm soreness, sprain, strain injuries that occur due to the highly repetitive nature of disc golf. This are by far more common than traumatic injuries but can be more difficult to take care of.

While traumatic injuries likely require immediate assistance, the rehab process requires a movement specialist of some kind. The overuse Injuries on the other hand, can be treated in many different ways. Through exercise, manual therapy, chiropractic adjustments and skill-based education and evaluation. We can help with the rehab portion of traumatic injuries or overuse injury portion.

How We Treat Disc Golf Injuries

In our Burnsville, MN practice we take a detailed history of your injury, followed by a functional exam and movement assessment. Our goal is to meet your goals as an athlete, and identify the best ways to help your body recover from your injuries. We do this in a 4 step model.

• Step 1 - Provide evidenced-based education for your complaint.

• Step 2 - Reduce the symptoms - (pain, dysfunction, etc.)

• Step 3 - Introduce movement back into the symptomatic region.

• Step 4 - Introduce sport or movement-specific skill based patterns.

Early on we expect your body to respond well, by reducing your symptoms. After that happens, we advance you through different stages of movement detailed below. once this is going well, we focus on skill specific movement patterns surrounding the sport of disc golf and getting you back to the sport, the same or better than when you were injured.

The below diagram is referred to as the “Stark Pyramid” and is the pattern in which we treat.

At Vector Sport and Spine: Chiro & Rehab, we are well versed in the above-mentioned treatment techniques and would love to help any injury or skill based needs you may have. Schedule an appointment if you would like us to help you.