Sports Injuries Need PEACE & LOVE

In this episode, we unpack PEACE & LOVE, a modern, evidence-based framework for sports injury recovery. Discover how early, guided movement, progressive loading, and the right mindset can accelerate your return to sport - helping you come back stronger, more resilient, and better prepared for performance.

Transcript

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Every day, you face a choice to stay where you are or to step boldly into the stronger, healthier, and more resilient version of yourself. Welcome to Move and Thrive, the podcast for active people who want to move better, train smarter, and stay healthy for life without burnout and without avoidable injuries. I am Dr. Siabo Magunene, your sports physiotherapist, coach, and partner on this journey towards a thriving and high-performing life. So I invite you to move, to grow and thrive. Participating in sport activities gives us joy, gives us movement, gives us community. And sometimes injuries, unfortunately. But what if the way we treat injuries is actually holding us back? Today's topic is sports injuries need peace and love. We're going to give you some tips on how you can manage your injuries as an athlete. We're saying sports injuries need peace and love. If you've ever sprained a ligament or strain a muscle and you've been told to just rest and ice it, this episode is for you. We're gonna give you more tips, advice on how you can manage your injuries better. Sports participation is one of the best things we can do for our health, for our physical health, mental well-being, and social connection. Participating in regular sporting activities can improve our cardiovascular health, can improve our muscular strength, bone density, mood, confidence, even academic and work performance. There are many benefits that we gain from participating in sports. But there is a catch. Sports injuries are common across all ages, from children in school sport to elite professional athletes. You know, injuries can cause pain, time away from sport. Injuries can reduce performance. In some cases, injuries can cause long-term health problems like chronic pain or early arthritis. But here's the good news there is a solution to managing soft tissue injuries. How we manage injuries has evolved over time, and the evidence is clearer than ever. Today I want to empower athletes. I want to empower you with modern evidence-based way of managing soft tissue injuries using a framework called peace and love. Before we talk about management of sports injuries, let's clarify what we are dealing with. What are the types of sports injuries that we see? Most injuries fall into the musculoskeletal category involving muscles, tendon, ligaments, and bones. So musculoskeletal injuries will include things like sprains, those are ligament injuries, and also will include strains, those are muscle and tendon injuries. Musculoskeletal injuries can also include fractures, dislocations, contusions, or bruises. So those are the types of musculoskeletal injuries that we see in sports. And literature is showing that ankle, knee, shoulder injuries are among the most common injuries across all sports. Muscle injuries, for example, muscle strains and contusions are particularly frequent, especially in sprinting sports, football coats, rugby, trek and field. And these injuries are leading cause of time loss from competition. In running, for example, we see a lot of knee pains, Achilles tendonopathies, shin splints, ITB, band syndromes. There are many types of overuse injuries that we see in running. In sporting codes like netball and basketball, where there's a lot of turning and twisting, we see a lot of ankle sprains, Achilles tendon raptures, and hand and wrist fractures. In jumping and cutting sports, we see mostly ligament injuries, your ACL injuries, etc. Especially during single leg landing. So understanding injury patterns helps us to plan better prevention and better rehabilitation. You may be wondering why sports injuries happen. Sport injuries rarely happen due to one cause. So causes are multifactoral. They result from an interaction of risk factors, both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. For example, extrinsic factors will include things like poor or rushed warm-up sessions, sudden increases in training load when you do too much too soon, overtraining without recovery, technical or biomechanical errors, high speed conduct sports. So those are your extrinsic or external factors that may contribute to injuries. We also have intrinsic factors like your internal factors that will include your previous injuries. Age is a factor as well. The older you are, the more prone to injuries you are. So reduced strength and flexibility, these are some of the internal factors that exist. Poor neuromuscular control, fatigue, and many others. So these are things that explain why we get injuries. So causes are multifactorial. So when you are talking of injury prevention or injury rehabilitation, we also deal with reducing the risks of injuries by attending to these factors that we just mentioned. So injuries are not random, they are often load-related and manageable. Please highlight manageable. That's what this episode is about. It's to help you manage sports-related injuries. Now let's talk about how to manage sports-related injuries effectively. Remember, we said sports injuries just need peace and love. That's what we're gonna be unpacking now. For many years we have educated athletes and patients about RICE approach to managing injuries. R-I-C E. R stands for rest, I for ice, C for compression, and E for elevation. This has been an approach for many years, and this has evolved over time. We have evolved to things like price, which is P-R-I-C-E, which stands for protect, rest, ice, compression, and elevation. So it's an improved version of RICE principle. And there's another version as well, which is called police, P for protection, O for optimal loading, I for ice, C for compression, E for elevation. As you can see, the RICE principle has evolved over time. Now research has pushed us forward again. We are now talking about peace and love. Peace and love. This is an acronym that now we are at. This is a framework now that we are using to manage sports-related injuries. And this framework is widely endorsed in sports medicine and also in physiotherapy literature. So these two acronyms, Peace and Love, stands for something. Peace focuses on the acute phase of injury management. Acute phase meaning early phases of healing of an injury. And then love focuses on the recovery and rehabilitation phase. So this principle gives us two aspects: the acute phase and the recovery and rehabilitation phase. Together they reflect our modern understanding of tissue healing, load management, psychology, and active recovery. Now let's look at the first aspect of this approach, which is the peace part, the immediate injury care. This phase applies to the first few days after an injury. When pain is severe, when there is swelling, when there is loss of function. So it is important that you apply this principle. P for protection. Reduce or stop activities that increase pain. It doesn't help to keep moving the part that is injured, keep weight bearing on it, keep participating in sport. Protect that area by reducing or stopping the activity that we are doing. It will help you with the healing process. I know many of us don't want to stop. We think just continuing will make things better. No, you're making things worse. So short-term unloading means you rest one to three days or so. Depending on the severity of the problem, you may need more days to rest and not do any activity. But please avoid prolonged rest because that can also be harmful. So staying too long resting can make you stiff, can make your muscle weak, and can take you longer to rehabilitate and get back to your activities. First few days rest and then be guided by pain in terms of how much you can move after that. So that's the first part of the peace and injury care approach. E for elevation. When there is swelling, try and elevate the part that is injured. Just elevate it above the heart level so that you allow fluid drainage so that you can control or reduce swelling, especially when there is swelling around the area. So E for elevation, it's important. When you're sleeping or sitting, just elevate that part that is injured or that is solid. It will help control swelling. A stands for avoiding anti-inflammatory medications or modalities. This is where things get controversial. Inflammation is the first phase of healing. So inflammation is when the body is trying to heal itself. So there are some medications that tend to interfere with that process. So inflammation is not an enemy. Inflammation is a process of healing. So it's not an enemy. It is necessary that there is an inflammation process that happens for healing to kickstart to take place. This process is essential for tissue repair. It is the first stage of healing, which lasts for about a few days, up to seven days or so, or slightly more. So medication like non-sterodile anti-inflammatory drugs has been found to delay the process of healing, especially the strong medications. We're talking of declofin, for example, has been found to be very strong and has a way of interfering with the healing process. So if it's possible, please avoid strong non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. The risk is highest when these drugs are used early, especially within the first 48 to 72 hours after an injury. So avoid or limit these drugs in the first 2 to 3 days. But if you have to use them, use lowest doses for shortest duration. Your doctor will assist you with that. But if there is no need for it, allow the natural way of healing to take place. Some researchers also question the routine application of ice, arguing that it may interfere with healing pathways. I have a problem with this claim. For me, it's important that we find clinical balance in these matters. Ice does work, and ice may reduce pain. Ice, if it's used appropriately, can assist in controlling swelling. It may not stop swelling or inflammation altogether. There is a place for it, but it's important that we find clinical balance in these matters. So we were talking about A, which stands for avoiding anti-inflammatory modalities, including the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Some will say also ice as well. Now the next one is C for compression. Bandages and taping help control swelling. If there's swelling around the area, you need to just bandage that to control swelling or use strapping material to just support that area, compress that area. It helps to support the injured part and reduce excess bleeding or swelling. Sometimes bleeding happens inside the tissues, so by just compressing that, you assisting it, you're helping in controlling swelling. The last part of the peace approach is E, E for education. You must be educated and be informed about what's happening. This might be the most important element. So athletes and or patients who understand their injury, their pain mechanisms, load management. They recover faster and return to sports earlier. Don't be ignorant. Know what is happening. Know where that pain is coming from. Know how that injury is managed. It will help you recover faster. It will help you return to sports earlier. It will help you know what to do. So education is key. So we've covered the first aspect of the approach, which is the peace, which has got to do with the early phase of recovery. So P for protection, protect that area that is injured, E for elevation, elevate when there is swelling. A avoid anti-inflammatories as much as possible. C for compression, apply tape, apply bandaging to control swelling. Then E for education. Be educated, be informed about your situation. You will recover faster. Now let's look at the love aspect, the recovery and rehabilitation phase. Once acute symptoms are settled, meaning there's less pain, swelling is reduced, there is a bit of mobility around the area. So it's time for love. L stands for load, optimal loading. So it's important then you start gradually and progress into loading that part that is injured. Loading means moving it more to promote healing. Stretch it a little bit, mobilize it, weight bear on it, do some resistant movements on it. These are ways you can help it to recover better. So tissues adapt to stress. That's how you become stronger after an injury. So you can't just wait until all symptoms are gone. You need to start loading that tissue through stretching, through doing some mobility work, some weight-bearing activities, some resistant movements, etc. So optimal loading prevents stiffness, it restores strength, it improves tissue capacity. But pain should still guide you in terms of how much you stretch, how much you mobilize, how much you resist, do resistant activities or weight-bearing activities. O stands for optimism. This is important. Psychology matters. So positive expectations improve outcomes. Things like fear and thinking patterns where you assume the worst possible outcome can affect how you recover. Believe in your body's ability to heal. Trust the rehabilitation process. So if you are optimistic about your recovery, in fact, you tend to recover better. So we see a lot of improvement with patients who are positive about their rehabilitation process. So all for optimism. V stands for vascularization. Vascularization means improving blood circulation in the area. By just doing pain-free aerobic exercises, that will improve circulation in the whole body, including the area that is injured. So aim to try and at this stage to improve circulation around the area. There are many modalities you can use. You can use heat therapy, you can use exercise as a way of improving circulation around the area. This will help you recover better and reduce pain. Examples you could do some cycling, swimming, walking. These are things that can keep you moving and improving circulation around the area. So movement is key. So vascularization is another concept. With circulation comes blood with nutrients, with oxygen to help with the process of healing. The last one is exercise. E for exercise. This doesn't mean it's the last thing that you do. I think someone was just smart in trying to come up with this acronym Peace and Love. But exercise is one of them. The sooner you can start exercise, the better. Exercise is medicine. So you need to exercise. Rehabilitation includes exercise. Strong evidence supports early mobilization, progressive strengthening, balance and properception training. It's important. So rehabilitation without exercise, it's not rehabilitation at all. Exercise has got a way of restoring function, reducing injury risks, and building long-term resilience. Work with your physiotherapist to assist you with the type of exercises you can do. Now let's do a bit of recap. We're talking peace and love. Peace and love is a framework principle that is used to manage sports-related injuries. We said peace is for immediate phase of rehab, meaning that in 0 to 3 days you want to apply the peace part of the principle, which is the acute phase of rehabilitation. So this is the inflammatory phase of healing. Components of peace is P for protection, E for elevate, A for avoiding anti-inflammatories, C for compression, E for education. So the goal is to allow natural inflammation to initiate healing without interfering with that process. The love part is the subacute to returning to function. Time frame for that is anything three days to weeks to months, depending on the injury. So this begins once acute symptoms settle. So components of the love is L for loading, optimal loading, O for optimism, V for vascularization, and E for exercise, progressive rehab over weeks. The goal for love part is to restore strength, mobility, and function. So managing soft tissue injuries is not about quick fixes. Whether it's an ankle sprain, a hamstring strain or a shoulder injury, peace and love respects healing while promoting activity, as you have seen. It addresses biology, psychology, education, and long-term performance. So the next time you get injured, remember protect a little, move early, load wisely, and stay optimistic. Give peace a chance because maybe all soft tissue injuries really need love. Thank you for joining us again on Move and Thrive. If this episode supported you in any way, do pass it forward and inspire someone else.