Sport injuries still occurring in the Macleay

Owner of Keystone Health, Michael Kemp, explained that the lack of contact sport means the types of injuries have changed.

"Well certainly we're seeing less contact injuries due to the absence of organised sport," he said

"It's led to a spate of over-training from people getting back into fitness and starting to run again from the sports side.

"Coronavirus has given us more time to get fit on our own and the uptake on running has been amazing - more people have been jogging around.

"There's been tendinitis type injuries where people have, after a big lay off, started running everyday and that leads to lot of lower limb tendinopathies which is the inflammation of muscles of the lower limb."

With lots of people working from home and self-isolation seeing an increase in the use of devices and e-sports, reports of neck injuries are also becoming common.

"This may be seen as quirky but we've seen an increase in neck injuries that could be attributed to the increased working from home hours that may have lead to more use of personal devices or more hours spent at less than optimal desk setups," he explained.

"Most of the clinics in Australia are seeing the same stuff."

Whilst the self-isolation restrictions have seen the promotion of home workouts, the Macleay Valley seem to be getting their techniques right with limited incidents involving these workouts being reported.

"The home workout injuries aren't really there, most inexperienced people start with body weight exercises so we aren't really seeing the stories of people dropping a big weight bar on yourself," Kemp said.

"With home workouts you ease into it, you shouldn't increase too quickly with volume and intensity.

"As a professional we prescribe how to increase volume and intensity and don't put the two together."

Whilst the NRL plans on restarting at the end of May and AFL has outlined plans for a mid June return to play, community sport is projected to start around July or August.

Local clubs are expected to start with non-contact training before moving into contact training and eventually playing, that turnaround is expected to be a short matter of weeks with players needing to adjust to the demands of contact quickly.

Kemp provided advice on how best to combat this turnaround and adjust to the physical demands of contact sport.

"The length of time sporting bodies get to re-introduce training with other bodies is going to be crucial to preventing injuries in the future," he said.

"To best combat this, players can practice agility and balance training now along with change of direction to ensure they're ready for the season ahead."