Evergreen guide
Sports injury rehab stages (overview)
Stages are a teaching device. Your knee, shoulder, or ankle did not read the same textbook. Use this page to understand the conversation — not to skip ahead a phase because a calendar said so.
At a glance
- Protect → task
- Five headings
- How clinicians often talk
- Criteria > dates
- Plans should change
- Reviews
- This page cannot return you
- No clearance
A public map (not your program)
- Protect and settle — reduce obvious aggravators; check you do not need imaging or urgent care.
- Restore range — move what is safe to move.
- Rebuild capacity — strength and endurance that resemble life, then sport.
- Rehearse the sport — change of direction, contact preparation, paddling volume, and so on, only if cleared.
- Return and monitor — because the first week back is still rehab.
If a stage is skipped in a social-media video, that is entertainment.
Why we refuse week numbers
Grafts, bone, and tendons do not share a stopwatch. Age, sport, surgery, and your other health conditions change the story. Invented “week 6” charts on a commercial domain are a YMYL risk we will not take.
Who else may be in the room
GP, surgeon, coach, school sport staff, dietitian, psychologist. We are none of those.
Questions, answers first
What people ask on this topic
Criteria are clinical. This overview is not a clearance document.
Return-to-sport checklist?
Often some exercise belongs in a stage; which exercise is not for a website to pick.
Can I exercise while in rehab?
Read the service hub for the same idea in clinic language
Then stop collecting PDFs and book a registered clinician if you need a plan.