Netball Knee and Ankle Injury Prevention - 2023
Netball is the most popular sport amongst females in Australia, and injury to the knee and ankle regions are the most significant.
Our Physiotherapists Rebecca Snowden and Nicole Cullen have been supporting the Southern Highlands Netball Association for the past 5 years in implementing the Netball KNEE Program with great success in a decline in knee injury events in our local netball competition.
Rebecca is an endorsed provider of the Netball KNEE program and presented the program again in April 2022. To view a recording of her presentation and learn more about the Netball KNEE program, who it benefits from it and how to implement it you can access her 20min presentation HERE.
Since implementing the Netball KNEE Program Rebecca and Nicole have been assessing injury rates in our local netballers’ through past seasons and have identified another increasing trend – recurrent ankle sprains!
Recurrent ankle sprains are of particular concern as the secondary injury is often more severe and results in more structures of the ankle joint being injured, leading to longer rehab and increased time off sport. Unfortunately, many of these secondary ankle sprains could have been prevented if the primary injury was properly assessed by a physiotherapist and appropriate rehab and re-injury prevention strategies where put in place eg. taping/ bracing.
Nicole presented on Ankle injuries, management and prevention in April 2022 and her presentation can be accessed via this LINK.
Additional resources for Netball knee and ankle injury prevention include:
1. Netball KNEE Program: netball.knee.org.au (the knee program documents can be downloaded directly from this website in PDF format.)
2. Ankle taping demonstration (video)
3. Ankle Bracing demonstration (video)
4. TPS Ankle injury prevention exercise program 2022 (PDF)
Sports Injury Clinic
At The Physio Space we know that acute injuries can’t wait. That’s why we have a Sports Injury Clinic every Monday afternoon. For appointments call our Moss Vale rooms on (02) 4868 3994.
Remember - if you keep playing on a smaller injury it has the potential to get worse. Check out our blog from our Sports and Musculoskeletal Physiotherapist, Clayton, on “why it’s not just a simple ankle sprain”.