There's a classic Gershwin tune that starts, "Summertime, and the livin' is easy."

Easy? Not really. Not if you've injured some vital part of your anatomy enjoying that "easy" summer living. And not too hard to do, either - volleyball, trail running and tennis disasters can all ruin a perfectly good day - and that doesn't include the pain of falling off those ultra-high platform shoes.

So now you sure do hurt. But maybe you don't understand what you've done or what the official diagnosis really means.

Did you sprain it, strain it, break it or fracture it?

According to Dr. Adam Olscamp of The Orthopedic Surgery & Sports Medicine Clinic in Post Falls, sprains and strains are more or less the same thing. "It's a question of degree," he said. "A sprain is a ligament-tearing phenomena and a strain is basically a low-grade sprain."

Ligaments, bands of heavy-duty tissue connecting bone to bone, or bone to cartilage, assist in keeping the skeleton in alignment by supporting its joints.

"If an ankle has been badly sprained, it can take up to eight months to heal," Olscamp said. "If it's a low-grade sprain, an ankle brace may be enough to get the patient weight-bearing within a week. A higher level of sprain may require a special weight-bearing boot. Ligaments usually heal better with some motion work."

So what if the doctor sits you down and tells you that you've fractured a bone? Does that mean, as many believe, that you didn't break it?

Sorry, no dice. "Once you've fractured something, you've broken it," Olscamp said. "The two words mean the same thing and broken bones must remain immobile in order to heal."

In the case of busted bones "immobility," alas, means a cast.

The most common injuries Olscamp sees are cartilage injuries. "Most of them come from planting-twisting movements such as someone might get playing soccer, basketball, football, hockey or skiing."

According to the National Institutes of Health, cartilage is the "tough but flexible tissue that covers the ends of your bones at a joint. Healthy cartilage helps you move by allowing your bones to glide over each other. It also protects bones by preventing them from rubbing against each other."

Physicians also treat a fair amount of overuse injuries. These, for the most part, are preventable. They're the ones you get after going from zero to 200 the moment you step out the front door. Overuse injuries might also be called why-didn't-I-listen-to-my-body injuries and can result from undertraining and/or poor shoes.

"Crummy shoes have poor shock absorption features," Olscamp said. "It's almost inevitable that when you combine this with poor ankle positioning, you're going to end up with lower extremity overuse injuries.

"When we treat overuse injuries, anti-inflammatory drugs will frequently work. We also send these patients to physical therapy, since PT provides initial passive motion followed by strengthening work."

According to physical therapist Sue Donaghue, director of Kootenai Rehabilitation Services, "Our goal is to restore the patient's range of motion and build muscle strength.

"It's also important for us to get the pain and swelling under control as soon as possible using techniques like ultrasound, electrical stimulation and different types of compression, as well as cold and heat. We also do soft tissue work, which is hands-on therapy.

"All of it's customized and we do a lot of patient education."

When a new patient comes in, the physical therapist does a full evaluation of such things as range of motion, muscle strength, pain level, current daily activities and the patient's emotional attitude toward their injury and its effect on their life.

Machines are a minor component of their work, Donaghue said. "Manual therapy is probably the biggest thing. We get our hands on the bodies so we can feel what's going on in there - what's causing the tightness.

"The beauty of rehab is that we have the luxury of time to really get to know people. We look at everything - the physical components, what the patient wants to do to get back to "normal" status and what their goals are (for rehabilitation.) I think many people are not all that aware of their bodies until they have an injury."

Nineteen-year-old Matt Stassinos has had recent ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) reconstruction, but admits that before surgery he didn't spend much time listening to his body. "I hurt it a bunch throughout the years, but what finally did it in was a snowboarding injury I got jumping.

"I knew my knee was messed up, but I was bummed I wouldn't be able to do anything come summer, so I just kind of waited it out. Two days later, I knelt down to get something and couldn't get up. After that, it felt like it was straight to surgery."

Oftentimes, when the injury feels minor enough, people aren't sure whether or not to get medical help. One of the standard treatments stay-at-homers might try is called RICE (rest, ice, compression and elevation.)

"This is something the patient can do immediately for the first 48 to 72 hours," Donaghue said. "It can help you figure out the severity of the injury. The trick about elevation is that the affected limb must be elevated above the heart."

In addition, the Mayo clinic advises that if you follow the "rest" part of the equation correctly, you will avoid activities that cause pain or swelling, but not avoid all physical activity.

"If the injury has not improved after 72 hours," Donaghue said, "and if you get other warning signals like popping sounds, severe pain, swelling and throbbing, these are all good indicators you may have torn something."

According to Stassinos, who received his physical therapy at Orthopedic Physical Therapy Institute, the process worked well for him. "It helped me out and got me going."

Physical therapy is known for giving its patients' homework. Normally, this is not one of the more popular phases of the treatment.

"The home program will reduce the risk of re-injury," Donaghue said. "Whatever you put into it is what you're going to get out. You can come to therapy once a week, but if you're not doing that home program, you're not building."

Stassinos admits doing his PT homework wasn't a top priority for him. "Everyone told me that doing my homework would make things heal a lot faster and I did do it once in a while, just not as often as they said to. I wish I'd been better at it."

The best way to avoid a visit to the orthopedist or the physical therapist in the first place, the experts agree, is to warm up before taking on any physical activities.

"Say you're a runner," Olscamp said. "What you'd want to do is start with a brisk walk, stretch, run and then stretch again. It's kind of common sense. If you're going to do athletics, be prepared. The weekend warrior is a pretty frequent visitor to my office, especially in the summertime."