Chiropractic Care For Athletes
Chiropractic care can be an incredibly beneficial resource for athletes. No matter your age, level of competition, or sport that you choose to play, one quality that all athletes share amongst them is their competitive spirit. Many athletes seek out different ways to improve their performance against their opponents, especially when it comes to maintaining proper health. In order for an athlete to perform at their highest level, they need their body and mind to function at a high level too. Chiropractic care can be one way to help achieve this.
Sports require a lot of physical movements and put a lot more stress on an athlete’s body compared to a typical person. In turn, this means athletes are more prone to experiencing pain or injury. Many chiropractors specialize in sports-related injuries and provide personalized chiropractic care for athletes. Common sports related injuries and ailments that chiropractors treat include sprains/strains, muscle aches, knee/leg pain, and back pain. Continue reading to understand some of the benefits that chiropractic care can offer to athletes.
Injury Prevention
Many athletes wait until after an injury occurs to seek treatment from a medical professional. The truth is that there are many steps one can take before suffering an injury to actually help prevent them from happening in the first place. Chiropractic care involves using a broad range of techniques to ensure that the spine is in alignment, which also helps in keeping the rest of your bodily functions working properly and effectively.
Chiropractors are more than just back and neck doctors, they are also educated in fields of nutritional science and nutrition counseling. A chiropractic physician can assist an athlete in proper diet and nutrition, sleep guidelines, and proper training strategies that can be utilized as a life-long habit.
Injury Treatment and Pain Relief
When an athlete experiences an injury, they often want to treat it quickly so that they can return to the playing field as quickly as possible. Unfortunately if an athlete does not allow their body to heal properly, there can be more severe or even additional injuries as a result. Chiropractors are well trained and educated within the field of rehabilitative exercise. Many rehabilitative chiropractic treatments help reduce swelling and inflammation in an athlete’s body so it can heal quickly and completely. Chiropractic care also helps promote healthy blood flow throughout the body, which may speed up recovery.
When receiving a spinal alignment, your chiropractor is seeking to treat subluxations. A subluxation is what’s known as a slight misalignment within the vertebrae, and even small misalignments of the spine can create problems that span all over different areas of the body. A chiropractor understands exactly how to detect potential sources of misalignment within the spine. Ensuring that the spine is in proper alignment can also help in keeping the rest of your bodily functions working properly and effectively.
Chiropractic care utilizes a broad range of holistic and non-invasive techniques. Drugs are not always the best option for an athlete facing a serious injury. Not only do they carry the risk of addiction, but they aren’t really helping you heal faster. Instead they’re just masking the pain for a short period of time. Many studies have shown that chiropractic treatment helps athletes recover from injuries faster without the need for painkillers or invasive surgery.
Increased Performance
A misaligned spine or a knee injury can interfere with the functions of all other systems within the body since all parts of the body are connected. This can cause athletic performance to suffer. When athletes seek chiropractic care and are getting regular adjustments, this keeps the spine working smoothly and in turn, helps ensure that other body parts are functioning properly.
With regular chiropractic care, an athlete may notice increased flexibility and reduced muscle stiffness. Now when experiencing less soreness and body tightness, an athlete is able to stretch their muscles more easily and have an increased range of motion, which may help them run faster or catch balls easier. This helps meet the physical demands of the sport while decreasing the risk of injuries from pulled muscles.
If you are an athlete, or perhaps the parent or friend of an athlete, and want to learn more about how chiropractic care can play a role in your athletic endeavors, then we highly encourage you to reach out. Our Duluth Chiropractor Dr. Robert Torgrimson has over 30 years of experience treating sports related injuries and working with athletes to maintain positive health outcomes. You can contact Associated Chiropractic Physicians at (218) 728-3686, we look forward to helping you!