Muscle strains seem to be the most common diagnosis for a musculoskeletal injury when a coach, athletic trainer or physical therapist is either unskilled, uneducated or too lazy to assess the actual injury. While muscle strains certainly exist and can be problematic they are not nearly as prolific as their number of diagnoses would indicate. More often than not injuries that are assessed as muscle strains are contusions, spasms, and muscular / fascial adhesions. The latter two issues can quite readily be addressed with standard treatment (a little rest, ice, ice massage, etc) combined with soft tissue treatments such as trigger point and myofascial release. In such cases, I wouldn't really even classify the misdiagnosed 'injury' as an injury but rather a nuisance that can be easily addressed. With appropriate treatments the athlete can often return to nearly full functional capacity within minutes. This is in stark contrast to the rehab outcome measures produced by overly lazy conservative rehab done when non-strains are diagnosed and treated as strains. Rant over.
