Sports Injuries

Chiropractic care has received much attention in regards to its successful management of sporting injuries. Since the majority of sports injuries are soft tissue in nature and because many of injuries arise from improper body biomechanics and improper sporting techniques, chiropractic doctors have become the doctors of choice - from the weekend warrior to the professional athlete.

According to an article in the June '98 issue of The Physician and Sports Medicine, "Interest in alternative or complementary medicine 'especially chiropractic' is booming... active patients are running to unconventional providers to treat their aches and pains... from chiropractors and acupuncture to magnets and meditation."

It's really quite simple. Chiropractic care - through the use of safe and natural spinal adjustive techniques, physiotherapy applications, soft tissue mobilization, stretching and exercise programs, diet and nutritional counseling, and extensive biomechanical training - focuses on all causes which have lead to the symptoms of pain and tissue injury and do not focus on solely eliminating pain.

Successful treatments must focus not only on pain relief, but must address the underlying causes such as muscular imbalances, biomechanical deficiencies, improper sporting techniques, and improper conditioning, to name a few.

Injuries In Competitive Athletes

Many professional and competitive athletes already know the value of regular chiropractic care. Increased flexibility, increased energy, increased speed, and increased performance as well as a decrease in injuries are all benefits of chiropractic care.

In fact, it's becoming rare to find a professional or amateur sports team that does not have a "team" chiropractor.

Increasing Athletic Performance

Chiropractic is an excellent adjunct to any sports regimen. Through the use of highly specific and safe spinal and extremity adjustive techniques, physical therapies, therapeutic exercises and stretches, dietary and nutritional counseling and correction of biomechanical faults - athletes can experience increased performance and reduced risk of injury.

Chiropractic care can increase range of motion, flexibility, balance, coordination, joint proprioception, body symmetry, agility, reaction times, speed, and kinesthetic awareness - all essential to the serious athlete.

In a recent study a group of asymptomatic university baseball players were split into 2 group; one group received spinal manipulation while their counterparts acted as controls - receiving no care. Vertical jump, broad jump, standing broad jump, muscle strength, blood pressure, pulse rate, microcirculation (nail bed capillary counts) and stress test were evaluated in all athletes prior to the study, and 5 & 14 weeks follow up. Those receiving spinal manipulation experienced significant improvements in muscle strength and long jump distance at 14 weeks. The spinal manipulation group also experienced improvement in capillary counts at 5 and 14 weeks follow-up. Additionally, the spinal manipulation group had decreases in resting blood pressure and pulse rate following tread mill activity.