Injury affects us all. When it strikes, it may impact on our ability to work, complete our hobbies and play sport. One group who will be doing their best to stay injury free are our local Team GB athletes at the London Games. With less than four weeks to go, these athletes will be at peak fitness following years of preparation and months of gruelling training. At this point, any illness or injury would be catastrophic. With all that training and stress, how do these athletes manage to stay injury free? One of the things we know, as sports physiotherapists, is that specific injuries will occur in specific sports.

Impact sports like rugby will often result in injuries as a consequence of collisions with other players.

Others, such as Olympic disciplines like sailing and cycling, where Dorset will be well represented, typically feature injuries as a consequence of overtraining, which is where pace of training far exceeds the body’s ability to cope. Examples include back strains in sailors and shoulder tendinopathy in swimmers and rowers.

One of the roles of a physiotherapist is to ensure these areas of the body are specifically trained to cope with the abnormal stresses and strains demanded by the sport. This may include core stability training for the sailors and rotator cuff training for the swimmers.

The same principles also apply for the general public and recreational athletes. We often find that a change in season often brings about different injuries, for example back strains in the garden on a sunny day and knee sprains on the winter ski trip.

The key lesson we can learn from our Olympic athletes is that we should all condition ourselves to enable us to do the hobbies and sports we enjoy.