Return to Sport Calculator

This calculator estimates a recovery window — a minimum and maximum number of weeks — plus a phase count and a clearance checklist, from three inputs. Injury Type and Severity do nearly all of the work: each combination of the four tissue types (muscle, ligament, bone, concussion) and three grades maps to a fixed week range from a lookup table. The spread across the table is enormous compared with anything else in the tool — a mild muscle strain is quoted at 1 to 3 weeks, while a severe ligament sprain runs 16 to 52 — so the dropdowns, not the age field, decide your timeline. Age nudges that table value rather than setting it: for every year over 30, both ends of the window stretch by one percent (a 50-year-old sees the table figures inflated by 20 percent before rounding), while an athlete under 18 gets a 15 percent reduction, and anyone from 18 to 30 uses the raw table numbers.

Rehab Phases is a count of progressive stages, fixed per injury type at the chosen severity — concussion always lists six phases regardless of grade, reflecting its stepwise exertion protocol, while other tissues run three to five. The Clearance Criteria output is a text standard tied purely to injury type, such as strength above 90 percent of the uninjured side for muscle strains. Not modeled: surgical repair, re-injury history, or sport-specific demands.