Many athletes associated chiropractic adjustment with treatment for sporting injuries, but the truth is that regular appointments with the skilled and experienced chiropractor are just as valuable for preventing injuries, as well as enhancing your future athletic performance.
Here are five of the ways in which chiropractic care can reduce sports injuries.
1 – Improve Your Range Of Motion And Flexibility
Whether professional or amateur, most athletes push their body to the limits when they participate in their preferred sporting activity. Many sporting injuries that occur do so because the athlete is pushing their body harder than usual and beyond its usual capabilities. When you have regular chiropractic adjustments, one of the things that your chiropractor will do is to improve the position of your spine. Called spinal adjustments or manipulations, these carefully-controlled movements help ensure that the entire musculoskeletal system is in balance. As a result, patients often find that they have improved range of motion. Your chiropractor can also work with you to perform exercises that will improve your natural flexibility, which again will make injuries less likely.
2 – Correct Your Posture
Posture refers to the position of your body when you sit, stand or lie down. An ideal posture is where the spine is straight, with the only curves being the natural, mild ‘s-bend’ that occurs down the length of the spine. Unfortunately, many people pay little attention to their posture day to day, and this can have a long-term impact on the alignment of your spine and its stability. Correct posture has been shown to be an important factor in reducing the risk of any sort of musculoskeletal injury, including those that occur during sports.
3 – Reduce Wear And Tear On Your Joints And Muscles
When you regularly push your body to the limit, you will be accelerating the natural wear and tear on your joints and muscles that comes with day to day life. This increases your risk of injury in the future. However, by ensuring that your musculoskeletal system is perfectly aligned, your chiropractor can actually reduce this excess wear and tear on your body, and help to make future injuries a low concern.
4 – Treat The Cause Of Your Discomfort Rather Than Only The Pain
The trouble with sports injuries is that they often lead to the injured athlete taking pain medications. While these will relieve your discomfort, they won’t treat the underlying cause of your discomfort, but simply mask it. This means that you could actually do further damage to your body without realizing it. Chiropractor adjustments trigger the body to produce and release natural pain-relieving endorphins, which will help to reduce the pain that you are experiencing. However, the adjustments will also help treat the root cause of your pain too. Not only will you be able to become less reliant on taking pain medication, but you can rest assured knowing that your actual injury is healing too.
5 – Accelerate Your Recovery Time
Although prevention of future injuries is ideal, the reality is that anyone who participates in sports is likely to suffer an injury from time to time. Hopefully, the benefits of regular chiropractic treatment listed above will mean that your injuries are mild. However, chiropractic care will also help you to recover more quickly. This is because spinal adjustments have been shown to improve blood flow. This sends oxygen and nutrient-rich blood around the body more effectively, including to the areas that need it most to heal damaged cells. With regular chiropractic sessions, you could get back on your feet and enjoying life and your chosen sport much more quickly.
For more advice, call Auburn Hills Chiropractic and Rehabilitation at (316) 721-2220 to reach our office in Wichita, Kansas.