Soccer Injury: When To Walk It Off and When To Get Help

Soccer, better known as football worldwide, is the most widely played sport in the world with roughly 265 million people who participate in organized leagues. That does not include the people that play for fun as their social outlet or preferred method of exercise for health and wellness. Now as a sports medicine physical therapist that is a diehard soccer fan you can imagine those stats on the number of people playing make me happy but also concerned for injury rates.

Regardless of the sport you are involved in, injury is unfortunately a part of the game and we do our best to prevent, reduce, stop, or whatever word makes you feel better when marketing to the soccer community. It is all semantics in my eyes and the overall message should be how can we help these athletes stay on the field, having fun, and enjoying the beautiful game. This is where the soccer community needs some education, especially in the United States, where the “rub some dirt on it” mentality is a foundation of our tough guy image.

It is important to realize that every knock you take or ache that you feel does not mean you run to your sports medicine team in a panic. One of my favorite quotes from a leader in the rehabilitation community is

“Every hurt does not equal harm”, Craig Liebenson DC.

What he means by this is that our body interprets pain in many different ways and that we do not need to sound the alarm with every ache we feel. When these pains impact our ability to participate then we need to address it and train our body to be more resilient.

For soccer players, the best approach is to have our coaches involved in the tracking process of these bumps, bruises, aches and pains. If a coach is seeing these injuries impact time in training, performance in a match, or an athlete is having recurring complaints then they should be referred out to someone in their sports medicine network to identify and manage the issue. The most important part of soccer development is being available to play. You can not improve if you constantly miss time.

The thing I hear most often from youth soccer players that end up in my PT office after an injury has limited their time on the field is, “My physician told me to rest 6 weeks and then I can go back to playing”. No, rest is not always a bad thing, but rest should have a different meaning in the sports rehabilitation world, and that is actively recovering and preparing for a safe return in 6 weeks, 8 weeks, or even 1 week. The time does not matter from my perspective as long as you are able to prepare for the demands of your sport and reduce the variables that you have control of.

So when do I walk it off? Well that answer is simple in my eyes, when the knock you take doesn’t decrease your performance, cause you to miss time from your sport, or does not make you second guess yourself on the field.

Mentally feeling ready to go back to sport is just as important to your physical well being as the injury itself. So my message to all the soccer fans, players, coaches, and sports medicine teams: Track your injuries, monitor your performance or ability to participate, communicate with the coaches and sports medicine team, and most importantly make sure you are having fun! Building resilient soccer players will improve the performance of each individual and their contribution to the team.

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