Fourteen-year-old Lin Kuan-yi (林冠儀) achieved a milestone on his road to becoming a professional gymnast last month when he garnered four gold medals and one silver at the 48th International Children’s Games held in Australia, but all that would not have been possible if he had not resorted to sports physical therapists due to lumbago.
“I have been receiving gymnastics training for nine years since I was a first-grader in elementary school, but in August last year, only months before the Games, I found myself suffering a sharp lumbar and back pain every time I landed or performed a vault, forcing me to rely on a lower back protector,” Lin told a press conference held by the National Taiwan University Hospital in Taipei yesterday to raise public awareness of physical therapies for injured athletes.
Lin said his mother took him to see a traditional Chinese physician, but none of the treatments or therapies the doctor administered in the following two months helped assuage his symptoms.
Photo: Lin Hui-chin, Taipei Times
The teenager subsequently turned to the hospital’s Orthopedics Department and underwent an examination, but it did not find any problems with his bone structure.
The hospital’s Physical Therapy Center also failed to pinpoint the cause of Lin’s lumbago at first, until it noticed him having trouble doing squats and determined that it was limited lower limb flexibility and insufficient core strength that had been causing the pain in the lower part of his body.
Physical therapist Yang Wang-ching (楊宛青) said the center then designed a series of therapies for Lin, which lasted a month and included hot compresses and electrotherapy, massages, myofascial release treatment, spinal manipulation and exercise.
“The therapies successfully reduced the pain to a minimum and allowed Lin to perform at his best when he attended the Games,” Yang said.
Unlike traditional physical therapy, Yang said sports physical therapies offer customized treatments for athletes based on the nature of their sports, designed not only to ease pain or allow them to walk properly, but also to help them strengthen muscles or parts of the body that play a major role in the sports they do.
Taipei Municipal Datong High School and national gymnastics coach Cheng Kun-chieh (鄭焜杰), who is Lin’s coach, said many up-and-coming athletes endure various kinds of injuries when they perform for a national team.
“Since injuries often play a decisive role in an athlete’s chances of winning medals, the government should endeavor to prolong their careers by providing resources to ensure that their injuries are properly treated,” Cheng said.
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