Sweep Away Pain

Comments

Pick your favorite foursome.  The Fantastic Four.  The Fab Four.  The Ferbey Foursome.  Even though Randy’s crew or the Martin rink did not make it to the 2007 World Men’s Curling Championships, Ontario’s Team Howard will definitely be in the running for the gold.  And, if previous experience is any indication, they will also, as did many of the curlers from past Brier events, need a little help from their sports physiotherapy friends.

FOUR CURLING CONUNDRUMS

Capilano Rehab staff  routinely see four painful problems suffered by curlers, both at the recreational and competitive levels, and these are the following:

·         HACKY BACK

Having to squat in the hack puts mega pressure on the low back.  Add a further rotation with throwing the rock and you can have the facet joints and low back muscles yelling and screaming more than a Manitoba skip.

·         SWEEPER’S ELBOW

Not only do the lead and seconds need to have a grip on their emotions as they toss their stones to set up the house, they have to really get and keep a grip on their brooms.  Unfortunately, all the gripping and repetitive push-pull pro-style sweeping, can cause the outside elbow tendon to cramp and be rubbed the wrong way, leading to a nasty lateral epicondylitis.

·         SLIDER’S KNEE

The shooting slide, now so common with all curlers, was only made fashionable about forty years ago by curling legend, Matt Baldwin.  This style, while great for improved shot weight and precision, produces a tremendous amount of torque on the inside of the crouching knee (opposite the throwing hand).  .  The result can be an inflamed underneath surface of the kneecap (chondro malacia patella) or minor MCL and cartilage irritation.

·         PESKY PELVIS

A pelvis can become pesky if a back or knee is out of whack.  How?  This causes compensation at the hips which, as the old song goes, are connected by hip muscles to the pelvis-bones.  As the hip muscles knot and shorten up, they increase the pressure on the pelvic joints and can actually upset the pelvic alignment, giving us things like ilio-sacral torsions. 

REHAB CURLING CURES

Painkillers and medications are appropriate as part of the short term solution for managing acute strain and sprain injuries noted above.  However, over an extended period of time, meds mostly mask the pain, leaving the underlying cramps and dysfunction untouched.  At the Brier, combined treatment programs including, soft tissue therapeutic massage, interferential stimulation, ultrasound, stretching, spinal mobilization and manipulation, stretching, and exercise were part of a more definitive rehab solution.

If your back, elbow, knee or pelvis is giving you a hard day’s night, and keeping you from the fab stuff you like to do, don’t give your pain the hammer over you.  Draw on down to Capilano and their physical therapy staff will help you sweep away your pain.

©Copyright Brent Kassian March 2007