Chiropractic care has been proven to be an effective treatment for many different disorders, including back pain and headaches. What about athletes? How does chiropractic care affect them?
Since athletes are so prone to injury, they need to have a doctor they can trust. With recent research showing that chiropractic adjustments help with joint mobility and recovery time post-injury, there is no reason why every athlete should not visit their local chiropractor.
Good Life Family Chiropractic offers a wide variety of services to best suit your needs, whether you are recovering from an accident or dealing with chronic injuries.
THE MOST COMMON INJURIES ATHLETES GET
Playing sports in a perfect world would be the best, but people do not live there. People can move wrong and trip on objects or fall to hurt themselves. Sports injuries are usually the result of this kind of contact.
A sports injury that takes you out for just a few days is nothing too serious. It only becomes serious when the injuries become severe, like bone fractures. Major injuries usually require surgical intervention. Hence, regular chiropractic treatment reduces the risk of developing severe complications.
Dr. Tucker enumerates the most common injuries athletes are prone to. Most importantly, he provided some tips in reducing the risk of being injured.
- Strains - Muscle strains are a common occurrence in sports. Most incidents of muscle strains are minor and can heal with time, but some injuries may be more serious. The best way to avoid straining your tendons or muscles is by warming up before playing any sport-related activities.
- Fractures - Wearing the recommended padding, warming up, and stretching before exercise, practicing effective techniques can make people less vulnerable to fractures. Sometimes, pain is an indication of untreated strain. Dr. Tucker recommends to never play when in pain.
- Concussion - Concussions usually heal within a week to several weeks. Those who play sports should always wear the appropriate headgear to avoid concussions. If symptoms of a concussion continue to persist, then the athlete should not continue playing.
- Knee Injuries - Knee injuries can be painful and debilitating, in some cases requiring surgery to fix. Warm-ups, stretching exercises, and great poses reduce the chance of knee injury at any time appropriate cushioning or bracing, especially for contact sports.
WHAT IS CHIROPRACTIC CARE?
Chiropractic is a licensed profession that emphasizes the body's ability to heal itself. Treatment typically involves manual therapy, often including spinal manipulation. Other forms of treatment such as exercise and nutritional counseling are beneficial to effective chiropractic care.
The manual treatment methods used by chiropractors vary from stretching and sustained pressure to specific joint manipulations. These are usually delivered by hand and involve a quick, gentle thrust. Manipulation is most commonly done on the spine, but other parts of the body may also be treated in this way.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Dr. Jake Tucker, the owner, and CEO of Good Life Family Chiropractic utilizes a holistic approach in providing patients with chiropractic care. Good Life Family Chiropractic addresses the cause of health problems, as opposed to symptoms. By focusing on the 5 Essentials of health, we allow our body more freedom and room for expressing its natural ability - to heal and function.
Furthermore, the spine functions similarly to a highway. The spine is where the necessary information travels throughout the body. When it is properly aligned, this helps maximize nerve supply which then supports all parts of you- including your immune system, circulatory system, and nervous system.
Specifically, the 5 Essentials of Health include:
- Core Chiropractic - In chiropractic care, the nervous system is central to spinal correction. Improper spinal alignment can arise due to physical, chemical, and emotional stressors that affect your body every day. By optimizing nerve supply through chiropractic care, we unlock a person’s natural potential for their best performance and faster healing while also providing appropriate rehabilitation when needed.
- Nutrition - Your body is what you eat. What you put into your mouth affects the way you function and the level of energy you have. Good Life Family Chiropractors assess your current nutritional baseline. The assessment serves as the foundation of the chiropractic care every patient receives. Additionally, the nutritional baseline guides chiropractors to identify the exact changes and modifications to be made for each patient. Then, the personalized interventions and chiropractic care will be developed towards achieving better overall health than they have been able before now or ever dreamed possible.
- Mindset - A healthy mind starts with the right mindset. Our chiropractors begin by understanding your current knowledge and emotional health. Then, we help build a new lifestyle plan for improved wellness, well-being, and healing. The importance of having a healthy mindset is it supports nourishment to your body's organs to regulate moods, stress levels, and sleep patterns. Most importantly, it maintains an optimal brain function.
- Oxygen and Exercise - We all know that what you put into your body can affect how it functions and how you feel every day. But did you know that the composition of a healthy diet, which is focused on natural foods, can help improve your muscle-to-fat ratio while not diminishing weight loss? This is the reason why our chiropractors provide nutritional assessments to help design personalized plans for each patient to identify the specific needs to achieve better health.
- Minimize Toxins - Every day, harmful chemicals surround us. Fortunately, our program will help your body cleanse itself and provide you with strategies to create new lifestyle habits that minimize exposure so you can live a long life in good health.
The holistic approach of Good Life Family Chiropractor goes beyond chiropractic adjustments. Dr. Tucker ensures that the 5 Essentials of Health are emphasized to maximize the benefits of chiropractic care. They treat each component to be equally important. Most importantly, through the 5 Essentials of Health, Good Life Family Chiropractic develops unique and personalized chiropractic care services to meet your needs.
HOW ATHLETES BENEFIT FROM CHIROPRACTIC CARE?
Sports chiropractic is a contemporary subspecialty in the field of chiropractic. In 1980, the first sports-certified doctor joined America's Olympic medical team to address various musculoskeletal injuries and improve the performance and prevention during sporting events. Sports chiropractic is a continuously growing practice. It has been an excellent resource for athletes looking for ways to stay healthy and keep their bodies in the best condition to maximize their physical capabilities. Moreover, it keeps the athletes prepared and at a physical advantage to participate competitively in any sports league.
Competitive athletes require strength, flexibility, and speed to win. Sports teams worldwide have started using sports chiropractic care as a training tool, which has improved their performance significantly. Learn about all of the life-long benefits that come with this type of treatment for your athlete's health.
- Improved Athletic Performance
Chiropractors help alleviate any imbalances an athlete experiences. Knowing that their training is tough and risky, sports chiropractic protects their spines to avoid potential injuries when competing and during training. Chiropractic care is essential for athletes to keep their spine healthy. Regular chiropractic adjustments can help the body fall in line with gravity. Thus, resulting in less stress on the nervous system and reduces the risk of injury.
- Reduced Recovery Time
Sports chiropractic care can help your body recover after a tough competition or training session. After straining, muscles need to relax. If there is an injury, it will correct any vertebrae that have shifted position in the spine and bring fluids back up from other areas of the body to promote healing. Soft tissue adjustment is also beneficial because it breaks up scar tissues. It improves elasticity as well as flexibility while an athlete is recovering, leading to a faster recovery.
- Better Motion Range and Flexibility
When athletes experience stiffness and joint pains, they are not able to perform very well. This can be the result of intense physical activities in training that lead to problems with movement or spinal alignment. Chiropractic treatment is an excellent way for athletes who don't want these limitations on their performance because it improves range of motion and flexibility as a key benefit.
- Relieves Pain and Muscle Aches
Chiropractic care for athletes can help relieve pain in the joints, ligaments, and discs. It is significant because an athlete's performance may be affected by chronic or acute pain that could lead to injury, especially when performing strenuous tasks like running, jumping, and swimming. Chiropractors use several techniques, including spinal manipulation. It helps improve joint function and reduces inflammation. When inflammation is reduced, painful sensations around the body, such as back spasms from a disc herniation, also decrease.
- Minimize the Need for Drugs
In most cases, people resort to taking medication to resolve pain. Medications can range from oral products, cortisone injections, and other drugs that give immediate but short-term relief. On the other hand, chiropractic treatments are a drug-free alternative that reduces pain in some patients. Thus, athletes do not need to go through any risk of side effects or dependencies often associated with prescription medications
- Safer procedure in treating injuries
Chiropractic care is a safe alternative to invasive procedures such as surgeries. It can help alleviate pain from injuries through the body. Chiropractors often use multiple techniques and therapies for athletes recovering from different types of sports injuries.
GET TO KNOW DR. JAKE TUCKER
Owner and Head Doctor at Good Life Family Chiropractic
Dr. Jake Tucker's work in the field of chiropractic stems from a personal experience with its benefits when he was just six months old. Now, after receiving his Doctorate of Chiropractic degree at Life University in Atlanta, Dr. Tucker is taking care of Lincoln families. He is passionate about health empowerment for people to take charge over their well-being through The 5 Essentials.