Basketball
Background and how injuries happen
Basketball is one of the most demanding sports for the lower limb. The game is built on explosive jumping, hard landings, sudden stops, and sharp lateral cuts, often on hard indoor courts that offer little shock absorption. Each landing sends a force of several times your body weight through the foot and ankle, and the rapid changes of direction place the ankle ligaments and Achilles tendon under repeated stress. Over a season, this repetitive high impact loading is what leads to both sudden (acute) injuries like a rolled ankle and gradual (overuse) injuries like tendinopathy and stress fractures.
Common injuries we see in basketball
Ankle sprains (often from landing on another player’s foot or cutting sharply), jumper’s knee (patellar tendinopathy from repetitive jumping), Achilles tendinopathy, stress fractures in the foot from constant pounding, plantar fasciitis, and heel pain.
How we can help
Your first visit is an initial consultation where we take the time to understand your pain (when it started, what aggravates it, and how it’s affecting your basketball and daily life). From there we carry out a thorough biomechanical assessment, looking at how your feet, ankles, knees and hips move and load together. We perform a gait analysis to see exactly where pressure builds through your foot as you walk and move, which helps pinpoint the source of the problem rather than just the symptom. We also complete a footwear assessment, reviewing whether your current shoes and court shoes are helping or hindering you. Then we discuss your level of involvement in the sport: how often you play, your training load, your goals, and whether you’re competitive or recreational. With that full picture, we build a personalised treatment plan, which may include hands-on therapy, strengthening and mobility work, footwear guidance, taping, and custom orthotics where they’ll genuinely help.
Prevention and self care
Warm up thoroughly before games with dynamic movement and calf activation, and build ankle and calf strength in the off court program to protect against sprains. Replace basketball shoes before the cushioning breaks down, and consider ankle bracing or taping if you’ve sprained before. Manage your load carefully during pre-season and tournament periods when injury risk spikes, and never play through sharp or worsening pain. Early rest often prevents a small niggle becoming a stress fracture.
Book your appointment in Balwyn North