5 Ways a Sports Injury Chiropractor Can Help Athletes
Athletes put a huge amount of effort into keeping their bodies in perfect performance condition. They eat mindfully to fuel their energy and build muscle, they work out—a lot—and do everything they can to optimize their athletic performance. They also tend to struggle with a lot of sports injuries. From overuse and over-extension injuries to injuries from mishaps and accidents, every athlete has experienced the pain of an injury and the frustration of having to take time out from the activities they love while they recover. This is why so many professional and amateur athletes rely on chiropractic care, both for regular posture maintenance and for faster recovery from sports injuries. Just a few of the sports injuries that I often treat as a chiropractor in Knoxville include:
Back and neck injuries
Dislocations
Sprains and strains
Pulled muscles
Muscle spasms
Overuse injuries like golf or tennis elbow
Knee injuries
Achilles tendon injuries
Shin splints
Tendonitis
Shoulder pain
And so many more!
If you are an athlete, an aspiring athlete, have a child who engages in sports, or are just a weekend warrior, there are 5 major benefits to getting sports injury chiropractic care and continuing to get maintenance chiropractic care, before and after injuries.
1. Sports Injury Chiropractic Care Can Ease Pain Symptoms
When a sports injury strikes, it’s important to get prompt chiropractic care to alleviate pain and put the body in its best position to start the healing process. Of course, I often suggest that the first thing to do, while you’re on the way to the office, is to “RICE” the injury as quickly as possible after the injury. RICE is an acronym for “Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation.” These actions will assist in keeping the inflammation and pain at bay while stabilizing the injury site. When you arrive for sports injury care, we will examine the injury site, ask about how it happened and then we can proceed with chiropractic adjustments that will provide natural pain relief.
But how does chiropractic care provide sports injury pain relief exactly? When you get injured, a lot of different areas of the body may be involved besides just your knee, wrist, elbow, back, shoulder, etc. Any fall or trauma can impact the alignment of the spine or the extremities. So, restoring correct spinal alignment and checking for extremity alignment can help your nervous system flow properly to direct healing resources where they need to go faster. It also improves circulation and oxygen flow to the injury site so that the area can heal faster.
Depending on the injury, we may also recommend therapies that complement chiropractic adjustments. For example, laser therapy is a great way to relieve pain during the healing of soft tissue injuries to muscles, tendons, ligaments, and fascia. Dry needling can help relieve tight, sore muscle knots from older injuries. And therapeutic exercises can help you get realigned and reconditioned faster so you can comfortably get back to the sport you love more quickly. We will carefully evaluate your individual pain relief needs and create a plan to help you feel better as fast as possible, naturally.
2. Improve Range of Motion with Sports Injury Care
A sports injury can definitely limit your range of motion for a time. Of course, some rest and temporary immobility as the injury heals is a natural part of the process, but as healing goes on, it is important to work together with your sports injury chiropractor to be sure you get back to your optimal range of motion. Correct spinal alignment in conjunction with soft tissue healing and therapeutic exercises and stretches can help you stay agile and not suffer from pain and stiffness that can be common after an injury. Spinal adjustments keep the entire musculoskeletal system in balance, while guided stretching can help restore a better range of motion so that you can perform at your optimum levels again without pain and stiffness.
3. Help Athletes Reduce Use of Pain Medication
One of the most pressing concerns, when an athlete is injured, is getting reliable pain relief as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, many people turn to painkillers right off the bat, and if you’ve been paying attention to the news, you know that this can be a slippery slope to pain medication dependency. In fact, a recent article in Forbes reported that adolescent athletes are particularly in danger of becoming addicted to painkillers after they get a sports injury. These medications may relieve the pain temporarily, but they only mask the pain and do not actually help with long-term recovery. Without proper care and healing, so many people can become addicted. This is why it’s so critically important, especially for young athletes, to have drug-free pain relief options that work, and work well.
So, instead of reaching for the pain medication when you have a sports injury, seek chiropractic care in Knoxville first. Chiropractic care and the other therapies we provide are great, natural, drug-free painkillers that don’t just mask the pain temporarily; they help the body heal so that you can get back to enjoying pain-free activities sooner, without the danger of becoming dependent on medications to feel better and cope with daily life.
Even patients who have been struggling with older sports injuries or chronic pain can get a boost of natural pain relief from chiropractic care and therapeutic exercises over the course of treatment. So, if you’re in pain, just contact us! We can help!
4. Chiropractic Care Helps Increase Strength and Flexibility
Another one of the great benefits of chiropractic care for athletes is that it is a great way to actually build and improve strength, flexibility, and performance over the long term. So, in addition to acute sports injury care and healing, regular, maintenance chiropractic adjustments are an excellent way to keep the body aligned so that you get the most out of every workout. When the spine and extremities are correctly aligned and you are moving in the correct way, your whole body functions better. The nervous system can better direct nutrients and resources to fortify the muscles. Your stretches are more effective at helping you stay flexible and limber because everything is properly aligned and circulation is moving at its optimal levels to nourish all of your tissues. In fact, regular chiropractic care is a great way for athletes at all levels to prevent injury in the first place. You’ll understand your body better and work more ergonomically so that you reduce the possibility of over-use and over-extension injuries and strains that can come if your spine is out of alignment. So yes, chiropractic care is excellent for helping heal injuries, but it can also help you avoid injuries in the first place!
5. Speed Up Recovery Time with Your Chiropractor
More and more research indicates that chiropractic care is a great way to accelerate healing after a sports injury. The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health has compiled several studies that show how people receiving chiropractic care, along with personal coaching through therapeutic exercises, compared with a control group who only had therapeutic exercise, reported far less pain and used less pain medication after 12 weeks of chiropractic care than the control group.
Because the brain is the control center for everything that happens in the body, it needs open lines of communication (the nervous system) in order to direct the body’s healing resources to injury sites. As a chiropractor, I realign the spine so that those lines of communication stay open, you get pain relief, and your injury can heal faster.
So it’s important when you get injured, not to hesitate to make an appointment with our office. Make sure to “RICE” until you arrive, and then we can help you from there. The faster we can see you, the faster we can help you start recovering, and the faster you’ll be able to get back to your favorite sport.
How We Help Knoxville Athletes with Chiropractic Care
Once you arrive at our office, we will do everything we can to help you start healing and feeling better. I’ll examine your injury, ask several questions and then recommend a course of action based on a clear understanding of your needs and goals. In addition to spinal adjustments to realign any subluxations, we will apply other therapies and give you instructions on how to care for your injury at home. We will also make follow-up appointments to continue your healing journey over the next few weeks as you gradually work your way back up to full, pain-free activity.
Schedule a Consultation at Homberg Chiropractic
If you’ve suffered a sports injury, be sure to contact us right away so we can work you into the schedule. We are eager to help you feel better and start healing!