NFL Week 10 Injury bug hit the Seattle Seahawks in a big way. It took out another member of the Legion of Boom. Earl Thomas missed the game with a hamstring injury. Meanwhile, Richard Sherman was injured attempting to make an interception and felt his Achilles pop. He’s out for the season.
Let’s recall, I wrote a post about Linebacker Jordan Hicks who tore his Achilles tendon earlier this year. The Achilles tendon is connective tissue, it is very dense connective tissue that joins the gastrocnemius and soleus together and anchors it done on the calcaneus (heel bone).
What Could I do?
He’s out the remainder of the year. He’ll be in a walking boot for a few weeks following surgery to reattach. I can help in the initial stages after the surgery to help with scar tissue mobilization and to help maintain the range of motion of his ankle. As I mentioned with Jordan Hicks, throughout his entire rehabilitation making sure the joint is moving well and the tissue feels healthy. Soft tissue therapy and maintenance has become more mainstream in helping athletes stay healthy, help with injury prevention, and help with injury recovery. To start we would focus on soft tissue pertaining to the foot, ankle, and lower leg. As Sherman progresses through his rehabilitation a more whole body approach to soft tissue treatment would be in play.
Defensive back Joe Haden broke his left fibula over the weekend in a win over the Indianapolis Colts. The injury occurred when he collided with a Colts player.
Let’s do a quick recap. The fibula is one of the two lower leg below the femur. The fibula serves more or less as an attachment site for a lot of muscles in the lower leg and in the foot and ankle. It’s the outside bone/lateral bone. Like many of the reports, Haden’s injury could have been much worse but lucky for him the injury won’t require surgery. If you recall, Terrell Owens broke his fibula the year the Philadelphia Eagles made their Super Bowl run and was able to play in the Superbowl. By no means is Haden’s injury as severe as what Owens’ was. But none the less Haden will be out at least 3 weeks. It was reported that his fracture was higher up on the fibula and not quite on the distal end.
My personal take, Pittsburgh will most likely make the playoffs and won’t necessarily need him to make the playoffs. But their secondary isn’t quite as strong as many hoped. But they will need him for a playoff run. I believe he takes the extra time to make sure everything has completely healed and that he can run, jump, cut, slide, backpedal, sprint, and etc. prior to returning. But the training staff will do a careful job in vetting him to make sure he’s ready to rock and roll.
What Could I do?
I can help with pain management. The way I do that is through manual therapies (A.R.T). We’ll do a lot of manual on the muscles around the knee and ankle to help maintain range of motion that the respective joints. Also manual of muscles that attach to the fibula directly. It’s never comfortable breaking a bone, regardless the severity. There’s no doubt he’ll get ultrasound and electric stim to help with bone regeneration and pain management from the training staff. We are going to want to keep his conditioning has high as possible so he doesn’t lose to much. Ways we can do that could be rowing, swimming, or biking.