Does Chiropractic Care Improve Athletic Performance?

Whether you're struggling with frequent injuries or you don't feel you're achieving your full potential, chiropractic treatment could boost your athletic performance. Chiropractic care can be a valuable addition to your training regimen no matter what sport or activity you enjoy.

Practice Doesn't Always Make Perfect

Have your skills plateaued or declined recently? Increasing your practice hours might seem like the ideal solution, but performance isn't always directly related to practice hours. Common sports abilities, like running, jumping, catching, throwing, and swinging depend on flexible joints and full range of motion.

A subluxation, or misalignment of the vertebrae in your spine, could affect these abilities. Although subluxations can cause pain, that's not always the case. While you may not feel any pain, you might notice that you can't run quite as fast or that your throwing accuracy is off. Muscles, tendons, and ligaments tighten when you have a subluxation and can contribute to joint stiffness. Subluxations can also cause muscle imbalances that increase your risk for injuries when practicing or playing sports.

How You'll Benefit from Chiropractic Treatment

Chiropractic treatments focus on relieving pain, improving the alignment of your vertebrae, and increasing flexibility and range of motion. Treatments also keep your nerves healthy, ensuring that messages from your brain to your muscles aren't disrupted by pressure from subluxations or tight muscles and tissues.

Your chiropractic treatment plan may include heat and ice, massage, trigger point therapy, soft tissue mobilization and manipulation, ultrasound therapy, flexion distraction, and spinal manipulation (chiropractic adjustments). Spinal manipulation, the most well-known chiropractic treatment, realigns your spine with quick hands-on movements or a handheld activator. Adjustments aren't just for the back and neck. Your chiropractor also adjusts misaligned joints.

Regular visits to the chiropractor may help you:

• Improve Your Speed. A 50-year-old racewalker preparing for a world championship saw a 2 1/2 minute improvement in his personal best time four days after chiropractic treatment, according to a case study published in the Chiropractic Journal of Australia in 2010. The racewalker received spinal manipulation and adjustments to the tibiofemoral joint in the knee.

• Be More Flexible: Tight, stiff joints and muscles make it difficult to run easily, extend your arms to catch a ball, or swing a golf club, tennis racquet, or baseball bat. Chiropractic treatments, like adjustments, massage, and soft tissue mobilization, improve flexibility and range of motion. Treatments also break apart scar tissue that can affect joint mobility after an injury.

• Increase Your Strength. Keeping your spine properly aligned is essential for good muscle and nerve health. You may find it's easier to make gains with your strength training program when you receive regular chiropractic adjustments. It's certainly no surprise that many professional sports teams take advantage of the many benefits of chiropractic care. In fact, the Palmer College of Chiropractic Medicine notes that about 90% of professional athletes use chiropractic to reduce injuries and enhance performance.

• Enhance Your Balance. Good balance is essential for any sport. Without it, you may be more likely to fall and break a bone, sprain a ligament, or strain a muscle. If you play soccer, basketball, or football, poor balance may affect your ability to quickly pivot when the direction of the action changes. Balance issues also make it harder to score, block an opponent, or recover from a hit or bump. Adjustments, massage, and other treatments prevent balance issues and help you optimize your performance.

• Quicken Recovery Time. Chiropractic treatment helps you heal faster by keeping your spine properly aligned and your soft tissues loose and flexible. Adjustments, ultrasound therapy, massage, electrical stimulation, and other treatments ease pain naturally, reduce scar tissue, relieve inflammation, and promote healing. Your chiropractor can help you recover from sprains, strains, plantar fasciitis, shoulder injuries, tennis or golf elbow, sciatica, carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis, bursitis, and back, neck, shoulder, leg, hip, knee, or ankle pain.

• Sleep Better. A good night's sleep is crucial if you're an athlete. While you sleep, your body repairs tissues and replaces damaged cells. Unfortunately, it may be impossible to sleep well if you're in pain. Chiropractic treatment relieves aches and pain, helping you get the sleep you need.

Chiropractic care isn't just for professional athletes. Why not up your game with a visit to the chiropractor? Contact our office to schedule an appointment.

Sources:

Chiropractic Journal of Australia: The Effect on a Racewalker's Sports Performance with Chiropractic Treatment: A Case Report, 8/2010

https://doc.vortala.com/childsites/uploads/312/files/The-Effect-on-a-Racewalkers-Sports-Performance.pdf

Chiropractic Economics: Top 7 Ways Chiropractic Boosts Sports Performance, 7/2/2019

https://www.chiroeco.com/sports-performance/

Palmer College of Chiropractic: Why Do Athletes Often Rely on Chiropractic Care?, 7/8/2022

https://www.palmer.edu/palmer-blog/why-do-athletes-often-rely-on-chiropractic-care/