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.
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) today issued a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-wong effective from 5:30pm, while local governments canceled school and work for tomorrow. A land warning is expected to be issued tomorrow morning before it is expected to make landfall on Wednesday, the agency said. Taoyuan, and well as Yilan, Hualien and Penghu counties canceled work and school for tomorrow, as well as mountainous district of Taipei and New Taipei City. For updated information on closures, please visit the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration Web site. As of 5pm today, Fung-wong was about 490km south-southwest of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan's southernmost point.
Almost a quarter of volunteer soldiers who signed up from 2021 to last year have sought early discharge, the Legislative Yuan’s Budget Center said in a report. The report said that 12,884 of 52,674 people who volunteered in the period had sought an early exit from the military, returning NT$895.96 million (US$28.86 million) to the government. In 2021, there was a 105.34 percent rise in the volunteer recruitment rate, but the number has steadily declined since then, missing recruitment targets, the Chinese-language United Daily News said, citing the report. In 2021, only 521 volunteers dropped out of the military, the report said, citing
Nearly 5 million people have signed up to receive the government’s NT$10,000 (US$322) universal cash handout since registration opened on Wednesday last week, with deposits expected to begin tomorrow, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. After a staggered sign-up last week — based on the final digit of the applicant’s national ID or Alien Resident Certificate number — online registration is open to all eligible Taiwanese nationals, foreign permanent residents and spouses of Taiwanese nationals. Banks are expected to start issuing deposits from 6pm today, the ministry said. Those who completed registration by yesterday are expected to receive their NT$10,000 tomorrow, National Treasury
A magnitude 5.3 earthquake struck Kaohsiung at 1pm today, the Central Weather Administration said. The epicenter was in Jiasian District (甲仙), 72.1km north-northeast of Kaohsiung City Hall, at a depth of 7.8km, agency data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effects of a temblor, was highest in Kaohsiung and Tainan, where it measured a 4 on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale. It also measured a 3 in parts of Chiayi City, as well as Pingtung, Yunlin and Hualien counties, data showed.
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