How sports injuries occur
Some sports injuries are dramatic events that leave you rolling on the ground in sudden agony. If you tear your hamstring or your anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) during a soccer game, you might hear a ‘pop’ then find yourself limping off the field leaving the goal-scoring to your team-mates.
Other injuries are the result of less dramatic microtrauma. Most sports involve repeated movement of a particular part of your body. Overuse can create microtrauma, which can sometimes grow into debilitating pain. Some of these injuries are even known by the sport responsible, like tennis elbow, runner’s knee or swimmer’s shoulder.
However, your injury came about, the end result is the same: you can’t play the way you want to. That’s where we step in.
Chiropractic may help to improve
Flexibility
Strength
Stamina
Range of motion
Alignment
Sensory-motor integration
Benefits of chiropractic care for athletes
Nerves control all joints and muscles. If the information being relayed between brain and muscle for example isn’t right, our chances of injuries increase. A chiropractic adjustment is targeted to a specific joint in order to restore function and allow the affected nerve to optimise its communication with the brain.
One study examined the benefits of chiropractic care in reducing the risk of lower limb injuries among Aussie rules players. When sports chiropractic was added to their regular treatment program, semi-elite athletes were less likely to experience muscle strains in their lower limbs and missed fewer weeks of training due to non-contact knee injuries.
Playing any sport involves lots of repetitive movements (microtrauma). When something is done repeatedly the joints and muscles react and the muscles experience micro tears, which heal over time. That’s how repetition at the gym builds muscle through the healing process.
Chiropractic helps this process by restoring proper function to the nervous system so it can tell the body what it needs to do to recover.
Chiropractic adjustments and manual therapy may help you recover after an injury by restoring your strength, flexibility, range of motion and mobility – all important elements of your recovery.
We work alongside your body’s natural healing processes, using targeted exercises and allowing time for you to recover fully.
Concussion is a common sports injury that may cause neck pain and dysfunction alongside severe headaches. Chiropractic care, including manual therapies and therapeutic exercises, can be used as part of a holistic treatment program to help athletes recover from concussion.
Chiropractic care can also address the way your injury has affected other parts of your body. When you’re injured, your body forms compensatory patterns to function as best it can while injured. These patterns can often lead to aches and pains in other parts of your body.
Chiropractors aim to locate the cause, and control these patterns of compensation, while allowing the body to heal itself. The result is a more resilient body with fewer layers of compensation.
Once you’ve experienced an injury, you’re at higher risk of it happening again. Your chiropractor can work with you to strengthen the affected area and address any underlying imbalances or misalignments that contributed to the injury.
Burnside Chiropractic’s care for athletes
We love to see people fulfilling their dreams in their chosen sport. Whether you’re into soccer, AFL, tennis, swimming, running or any one of a hundred other sports, we’d love to help you strengthen your body and move beyond injuries.
We’ll talk to you in depth about your chosen sport, your goals, and any sites of injury then develop a comprehensive program of care to help you move more freely.
Book an appointment todayAll information is general in nature.
Patients should consider their own personal circumstances and seek a second
opinion.