Make sure you’re ready for basketball

Editor's note: Cody Scharf is the owner of Thrive Spine and Sport, a chiropractic and soft tissue clinic in Cedar Rapids focusing on sport and overuse injuries. Scharf is a graduate of Palmer College of Chiropractic and certified by Integrative Diagnosis for diagnosis and treatment of soft tissue injuries.

By Cody Scharf, community contributor

With the start of basketball season come injuries and pain.

This year alone, more than 200,000 basketball related injuries will occur in children under 15. Basketball, while technically not a contact sport, is the fourth leading cause of injury in organized and unorganized sports. The most common of these injuries are sprains and strains affecting the hip, knee and foot.

Sprains are the result on an injury to the ligaments around a joint. These ligaments are strong, flexible fibers that help keep bones held together. When ligaments are overstretched, the result is a sprain. A strain is the same as sprain except in muscles and tendons.

With sprain/strains the body senses the injury and lays down scar tissue, or adhesion, to repair. With the adhesion present, the structure is 'fixed” but weakened by the adhesion. The weakened structure can lead to more pain or worse problems down the road.

In order to prevent injury, the body has to move properly. Below are three assessments to see if you are basketball ready:

1. Hip flexion. Lie on your back flat on the ground. Try to bring your knee to your chest. The front of your thigh should lie flat against your stomach and lower ribs.

2. Knee flexion. Lie on your back flat on the ground. Bring your thigh 90 degrees to the floor. Have a partner grab the top of your knee and ankle. Try to bring the ankle back until it touches the glutes.

3. Ankle dorsflexion. Stand close to a wall with hands on for support. Place one foot close to the wall and one foot behind you. Try touching the knee to the wall with the foot closest the wall. Continue to move back until the knee can no longer touch without the heel coming off the ground. Normal range of motion for this test is five to six inches.

Any assessment that fails to meet normal range of motion increases your chance of injury this season. The most common reason these tests are restricted is adhesion. In order to fix adhesion, manual therapy is necessary.

Whether you are recently returning from injury or healthy and these assessments are clear, there still are some necessary precautions to take. Make sure to properly warm-up and wear a brace on the previously injured area. Increased blood flow in involved tissues help them become more flexible and resist injury. Often, an injured area needs a little more support until it is fully healed. Daily foam rolling and active mobility drills also are a great place as preventive measures of pain and injury.

l For more information, email Scharf at cody.scharf@gmail.com or visit www.thrivespineandsport.com