Sports Injury Physiotherapy in Central London

Almost never complete rest. Modified training — reducing intensity, swapping high-impact for low-impact, training around the injured area — preserves fitness and supports recovery better than total rest. Complete rest causes deconditioning and often delays return to sport. Your physiotherapist will tell you what to keep doing, what to modify, and what to pause briefly.

Depends on the injury. Mild strains and overuse injuries often allow modified training within a week and full return in 3–6 weeks. Tendinopathies typically need 8–16 weeks of progressive loading. We give you a return-to-sport timeline at the first session and update it at every reassessment — based on objective markers (pain, strength, movement, training tolerance), not guesswork.

For most sports injuries, no. Clinical assessment is more reliable than imaging for guiding management of soft-tissue injuries — and routine MRI often shows incidental findings that complicate decisions without changing treatment. Imaging is appropriate after significant trauma, with red-flag symptoms, or when symptoms persist beyond a proper rehab trial.

Possibly, depending on the injury and how it responds in the first 1–2 sessions. For overuse injuries, modified training plus targeted rehab often allows the event to go ahead with a sensible pacing strategy. For acute injuries we will be honest about the risk-benefit. The decision is always yours; our job is to give you the clinical picture.