Understanding Sports Injuries: Common Issues and Chiropractic Solutions
Sports Chiropractic Solutions for Common Sports Injuries
Almost every level of athletic training, competitive sports, and general fitness pursuits involves a risk of injury, and the longer and harder you train or play, the more likely you are to experience pain or injury at some point in time.
While some are inevitable due to years of repetitive motions required in certain sports, most sports injuries can be prevented. The more traumatic injuries that can’t be averted can be rehabbed more fully through sports chiropractic care.
Preventing Sports Injuries
Along with ensuring you have the right gear and apparel for your sport of choice and adequately warming up prior to activity, proper conditioning of the body is helpful for optimal training and performance.
Every athletic training program should include a sport-specific balance of endurance, strength, and mobility work individually designed to meet the needs of your sports as well as those of your body. A specialist in sports chiropractic care can assess your personal biomechanics to identify alignment issues, range of motion deficiencies, and muscle imbalances for designing a specialized approach to training. This can not only improve your skill set, it can help prevent common injuries by reducing wear and tear on the body through proper body alignment.
Strains and sprains
Joint sprains and muscle strains are part of the game, sometimes due to no fault of your own. Merely training on uneven surfaces or landing awkwardly after a jump can cause excessive trauma to the ligaments and tendons surrounding the ankle, knee, or wrist. But so can a lack of strength or flexibility in the muscles surrounding these, and other, joints.
With a sports chiropractic training plan, biomechanic weaknesses can be addressed before they can lead to injury.
Dislocations
Contact sports, whether the contact is with the ground or another player, increase the risk of joint dislocations. Sports chiropractic care is proven effective for treating such injuries. As experts in skeletal alignment, a sports chiropractor can adjust dislocated joints to ensure realignment and follow up with manual manipulation of the tissues to prevent future dislocations, which increase in likelihood after the first. The rehab program will likely include a plan to increase ligament strength surrounding the original dislocation to help hold the joint in place.
Major injuries
Even when orthopedic interventions are required, sports chiropractic care is a valuable post-op therapy to encourage faster, more complete healing. Manual manipulation of soft tissues around the site of injury can bust up scar tissue and reduce inflammation to allow a better range of motion in the area. In addition, red light therapy, electrical stimulation therapy, dry needling, and other sports chiropractic modalities are able to precisely target and relieve pain without medication.
General training pain
Constantly pushing yourself to perform better often results in sore, stiff muscles and overall fatigue. Continuing to train in this condition can lead to injury. Your body needs some rest and recovery time. Many sports chiropractic modalities such as myofascial release, trigger point massage, and spinal realignment are designed especially to maximize your rest days and help your body recover better.
Sports chiropractic care is specifically focused on the functionality needs of the athlete who may demand more from their body than the average person. DTX Sports Medicine helps athletes of all levels maintain optimal fitness levels for better performance and fewer injuries. Contact us today.
