I am rarely surprised by many things but someone recently told me “I got my ACL repaired years ago and never did any physio after” – let’s just say my jaw dropped to the floor. This individual sitting in front of me wasn’t even here to talk about their knee. Letting that tiny little detail slip there was no chance I was passing up the opportunity to learn more about this old injury. We got chatting more and turns out, 14 years later, this individual is yearning for my opinion regarding exercises that can be done to strengthen and improve that same knee. The only thought running through my head was “what has this individual been doing for that knee the last 14 years?” I could list with more hands than I own the benefits physiotherapy has to offer. Even thinking back on this interaction, I am baffled. Just baffled.

Ok, you might be wondering “why is Marissa so obsessed with this story?”. For those who don’t know me well, soccer (or football to some of you), has been my sport for just over 20 years and I hope to be able to play it until my body tells me it is no longer a good idea. I have always had my eye on ACL injuries and many of my teammates have experienced this – a season-ending injury or for some some a career-ending injury. My interest in ACL injuries has lead me to this whole side of injury prevention because let’s face it, why are we not working harder toward preventing injury then relying on playing catch up spending weeks or months rehabilitating injuries?

How many times have you thought to yourself “oh, I don’t need to warm up today”? This happens more than we would like to admit and we are putting ourselves at risk for an injury. I will be the first one to advertise that I have not always had the best warm up before a practice or a game but the last handful of years I have witnessed far too many teammates go down with an injury. By no means am I a professional or will I ever “make it big” but this idea of injury prevention has changed the way I approach my training. I will confidently say that I am stronger now and it has greatly contributed to my injury prevention. No matter the sport or level of competition, injury prevention has a role to play. Don’t know where to start? Reach out to your friendly neighborhood physiotherapists at Optimize!

Think of injury prevention as a way to keep you playing soccer longer and hassle free. It can be as simple as adding a few exercises to your warm up before a game or adding an exercise or two to your workout at the gym. Come to Optimize to find out how you can tap into injury prevention or if you are currently taking the right steps towards injury prevention. Do it for you, do it for your body, and do it for the love of the game. 

I am always eagerly awaiting the next challenge and there is nothing I love more than helping individuals achieve movement goals. Tell me you are starting from scratch or tell me you have tried it all. I welcome the opportunity to change the way you think about physiotherapy and injury prevention. Come and find me at Optimize and surprise me! 

-Marissa Poon, Optimize Physiotherapist