Have You Been Injured Playing a Sport?
Sports are so much fun. Whether it’s team sports, a pickup game of basketball, enjoying an afternoon swim, skateboarding at the park, or just a game of dodge ball in the backyard, it’s a great feeling to play. And it’s no fun when an injury puts you on the sidelines.
Types of Sports Injuries
Sports injuries come in all shapes and sizes. Children get hurt playing soccer or practicing gymnastics. Athletes are injured in competition. A person training for a dream marathon might overdo it. Or there’s just that mishap playing baseball with friends.
While accidents during play account for many sports injuries, people also experience sports injuries due to repetitive stress on a muscle, joint, tendon, or ligament during training.
Why It’s Important to Heal Properly
Whatever the cause of injury, the person wants to get back in the action as soon as possible. But it’s also important to allow the injury to heal properly. Otherwise, it can lead to something worse.
The healing process also includes taking steps to condition the body. No one wants to jump back in, only to reinjure the same shoulder or leg on the first day back.
Overlooked Causes of Sports Injuries
A sports injury can happen to the best-conditioned athlete. Some injuries are accidental. But often, a person can be prone to injury, or the injury made worse, because of skeletal-muscular and nervous system issues.
A person who carries too much stress in the shoulders or neck … someone whose coordination is off because a hip is out of joint … a person for whom recreational walking causes foot pain or tendinitis, because the sciatic nerve in the lower back is inflamed or the spine is out of alignment … these are all situations where conditions in the skeleton, muscles, and nerves make it more likely to suffer a sports injury.
How Chiropractic Techniques Can Help
The good news is that chiropractic care can help people who have been injured playing sports. And chiropractic care can also help remedy skeletal-muscular and nervous system issues that might have contributed to the injury. Your chiropractor understands that sports are fun and you want to get back in the game. There are many ways chiropractic care can help.
Your chiropractor will work on the injured area, to restore alignment so the body can heal. As the body’s natural healing process is given room to work, pain and inflammation are likely to be reduced. Chiropractic care can help restore mobility to the injured area. Your chiropractor will also know how to help support injured areas where soft tissue has been affected.
The chiropractor will also check overall spinal and skeletal alignment. During sports injuries, other areas of the body might be affected besides the injury site. When the body is knocked around, or overcompensates because of injury, this stresses the entire body. Your chiropractor will be able to assess which parts of the body need readjusting. This can help reduce pain and allows the body’s natural process of healing to take place.
A good chiropractor knows how to help you with follow-up care, such as heat or ice, soft tissue therapy, and exercises to help restore range of motion and proper mobility.
Your chiropractor can also help determine ways that you might be prone to sports injury. The chiropractor will check your posture and mobility, while looking for any skeletal-muscular factors that may have contributed to your injury.
Chiropractic care can help your body heal properly, while preparing you to go back to your favorite sport with better conditioning. Because chiropractic care looks at the body’s entire frame, chiropractic treatments can help you avoid putting greater stress on your body after injury.
It is not healthy to overlook any injury. And if you enjoy playing sports, you need to be sure and allow your body to heal and recover properly, before you push your body again. Chiropractic care can benefit your recovery process on a whole body level.
Preventive Help
Not only is chiropractic care beneficial after a sports injury. It can also help on a preventive level. If you enjoy playing sports and you endure chronic pain, it’s important to know how the cause of that pain might affect you, each time you play sports.
Your chiropractor can help you locate the source of that pain. Chiropractic techniques can help you correct the stress on your spine or skeletal-muscular and nervous systems that may be causing your pain. Not only can chiropractic help address your chronic pain. It can also help you reduce the amount of stress you put on your body while playing sports.
The next time you’re on the ball field, or kayaking down a river, or chasing grandkids with a dodge ball, you will know that you have better prepared yourself for the rigors of sports. Your body will be better adjusted from head to toe.