What is Prehabilitation?

To help prevent injuries, get better results post surgery, get better results post injury during the season Physiotherapists have begun a Pro Active “prehabilitation” approach.

Put simply Prehabilitation is essentially training specific attibutes to stop the problem before it happens or get a better outcome once it does happen (i.e. surgery).

The idea behind this is that the stronger, fitter, faster you are the less liekly you are to get hurt and the faster you will recover after an injury.   This is based on the fact that your body recovers better when it is fit and healthy, your muscles, nerves, tendons, ligaments and brain all have memory.   This means that if they were fit in the past they will get fitter faster in the future. (ie.e better recovery)

The three phases needed to come up with a good prehabilitation plan are:

1. Analyzing posture, joint alignment, joint and muscle flexibility, muscle control, muscle strength, biomechanics, core stability and functional performance.
2. Understanding the risks of the sport, the side effects of expected injuries or surgery, and
3. Considering other specifics such as the persons medical conditions, lifestyle, sporting or life requirements.

Following these three steps, enables Physiotherapists to better predict and then develop specific training programs.

These techniques are case-specific and person-specific, as they identify and address specific flaws.