How to become a sports medicine therapist

10/8/2019

anatomy posters on the wall with a male caucasian client being palpated with the right thumb

Sports Medicine

Sports medicine is vital to the healthcare system in preventing, managing and treatment of sports related injury, however, is not only specific to athletes but also to everyone. Sports medicine's approach to care is wide and diverse but more towards movements and soft tissue work simultaneously to bring you the best of your abilities. Sports medicine has seen an increase in demands lately as more and more people are getting injured due to faulty mechanics and wrong execution of movements through either leisurely or competitive sporting activities. There are a few offerings from organisations to allow individuals who are interested to enter the sports medicine world to undergo extra training / speciality. Most of the programme out there are for qualified physicians, physiotherapists, chiropractors and the likes, with having to have at least a bachelors or a masters degree depending on the individual school(s)/ organisation(s) requirements prior to undertaking the studies. However there is diploma and certificate course studies offered by other institutions which again requires a pre-requirement(s) prior to undertaking sports medicine studies. The reason for this is because most of the programme aims to include intermediate to advanced anatomy/ physiology related subjects and within a period of time to graduate as a specialist in sports medicine, thus the pre-requirement(s).

Where to find the best Sports Medicine course

There are a few that specialises in Sports Medicine and some are towards sports sciences, have a look here to see a list of schools that may interest you in learning something towards your goals. Here is a few more resources that we found may be of interest to you in sports medicine studies:

Which Sports Medicine course should i go for

There are no two course/ studies which are the same, and this is why you should ask yourself, what do you want to learn and graduate with. Look into the course contents and see if anything they will be covering that interests you to garner more interests to practise. Ask yourself if you want:

To be more towards academics or clinical excellence?
To have more clinical attachments?
To have more exposure to athletic teams?
To have more exposure to different demographics of people?
To learn orthopaedic assessments?
To learn exercise prescription?
To have exposure to work on cadaver?
To learn biomechanics?
To learn soft tissue manipulations?
To manage acute/ chronic injuries?
and so on

Look at the itineraries if you have to travel or is it a full time studies where you have to take off from your current practise / work as this may be a deal breaker for some of you who are already working and having a busy work life. Whatever your goals are, speak to the school to learn more and we wish you the best in your sports medicine studies.

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