Ayurveda Sports Medicine

What is ayurvedic sports medicine?

     Sports medicine or treatment is not meant exclusively for sportspersons; it is a comprehensive treatment modality like ayurveda. It is a lifestyle, so it has better link with ayurveda than modern medicine. Once an athlete or player gets injured, we have to rehabilitate him and condition him to make him physically and mentally fit to compete at the next mega event: and that too minus any injury. Here the real challenge of sports medicine starts.
     Only with ayurvedic treatment we cannot offer good results in sports medicine. We have to adopt modern sports physiotherapy, rehabilitation protocols like proprioception, plyometrics, skill training, circuit training, resistance training, theraband exercises, isolated muscle stretching, eccentric and concentric exercise, isometrics, open and closed kinetic chain exercises, medicine ball training, core stabilisation, multi gym weight training and nutritional logs.
There is no reference in Ayurveda to the majority of sports injuries.
     Some of the subjects like biomechanics, kinesiology, exercise physiology and sports physiotherapy may be new to us but they play a key role in sports medicine. Many of the injuries affecting the shoulder may be due to the loss of muscle strength or weakness of the lower compartment like trunk, back and lower leg muscles, many of the injuries in the knee may be due to foot abnormalities due to chronic inversion ankle sprain or flat foot. A sports medicine doctor has to evaluate before treatment and correct the abnormalities so as to get a better and permanent result. Many a time the injury may recur after repeated episodes of treatment and training. Here a sports medicine doctor has to carefully examine his physical and nutritional parameters.

Victim Culprit methodology:

For example in tennis elbow weakness of the extensor muscles of fore arm may be the culprit the Victim may be lateral epicondylitis, or culprit may be weakness of the shoulder muscles or weakness of the lower leg (calf and hamstring, Quads )
Sometimes pain on the knee will be the victim culprit may ITB (Tight ilio tibial band) or weak VMO (Vastus Medialis Obliques) muscles or structural abnormality of retinaculum of patella or culprit may be even Gluteus muscle or Calf muscles even, so this fact has great significance in modern sports medicine.

Do’s and Don’ts while treating sports injuries:

Before starting the treatment first we have to ask for the history of sports injury, from the history itself we will get the exact idea of each injury and mechanism of injury and what is the real etiology of the injury and its severity. For Example an ACL injury in sports like foot ball may arise either because of valgus stress or due to varus stress, physician must understand that a valgus stress on knee always make MCL injury and often ACL with medial meniscal tear. And varus stress will be rare in football due to the playing and contacting part in such way that a force from inner part of leg is not often unless in awkward fall indulging legs in between players. Likewise a shoulder pain in Volley ball player has to examine whether it is a rotator cuff tear or weakness of subscapularis, or supraspinatus tendinitis or may be culprit seated in serratus anterior.

HOW TO TREAT SPORTS INJURIES

At the time of treatment we have to take the case very seriously and examine the patient thoroughly about the injury, if you are examine a patient rule is there don’t make hem harm, for instance simple diagnostic examination of the knee may sometime dangerous and will worsen the problem. If it is partial tear of ACL sometimes our Tests like anterior drawer test and lachmans may affect the knee adversely and may close the chance for the conservative treatment. Along with treatment itself early rehabilitation should be incorporated. So that isometrics and assisted resisted exercises, passive and active stretching and strengthening programme should be given. More over for maintaining physical fitness some other modalities also must be implemented according to the nature of event and condition of the injury. These are key rules of sports injury rehabilitation. And the sports medicine physician must know about the training methodology of each sports and games like circuit training, plyometrics, technical terms like take off, power leg, hop, drip etc. Athletes always express their problems with the above mentioned terminology and doctor must be well aware of it.

Treatment protocols in Ayurvedic sports medicine:

Management of injuries, -

Rehabilitation of injuries-

Active mobilization-

Passive mobilisaion-

Achievement of ROM

Strengthening

Kalari marma chikitsa and Keraleeya panchakarma treatment implementation in sports medicine:

     Marmas are vital points in the body. An injury to any of these marmas may cause severe pain, swelling, disability and even death. Many of the marma points have great importance in the treatment of sports injuries, like acupressure points in Chinese medicine. In olden days Kalari marma practitioners were involved in treatment and preparation for martial arts training. They even treated major injuries to nerves and bones by traditional Kalari chikitsa. Unfortunately, these were not documented properly and many of these kinds of treatments vanished from this world after their time.
     Kalari chikitsa has a great role in the management of various acute injuries like back pain, neck pain, muscle spasm and joint and bone injuries. These are simple techniques but need a lot of experience and knowledge about the bones and nerves (anatomy and biomechanics). Some of the severe acute back pains will get instant result within seconds, that also with simple manipulation techniques. We have developed many techniques after long training in traditional marma chikitsa and modern manipulation and chiropractic technique.
     When we treat an endurance athlete we have to take care of his prakrithi, dosha, dooshya, kalam, etc. As per the type of event and the activity, treatment modality will also vary.
     From the research and studies conducted at daisman sports medicine centre for the last 10 years. It was proved that;
     Ayurvedic medicines have potent action in acute and chronic injuries. Use of external application and internal medication found to be improving the healing of injuries and prevent oedema and stiffness, muscle wasting compared to modern treatment. Early mobilization and Proprioception is the great advantage of Ayurvedic combination therapy compared to modern treatment play key role in Rehabilitation in sports.

Promotion of Traditional Ayurvedic Treatment through scientific modern approach in sports medicine and innovations of new treatment modalities of Ayurveda for prevention, treatment and rehabilitation of sports injuries.