Whether you’re a semi-professional pickle ball player or enjoy hiking every weekend, athletic activities can take a toll on your body. Fortunately, chiropractic care can offer cost-effective and quick solutions for your sports-related challenges. The following are five reasons athletes choose chiropractic care over other healthcare options.

Detailed Performance Metrics

Even if you don’t personally participate in sports, you probably know that athletes enjoy keeping statistics on their performance. The stats are critical for evaluating performance and progress.

Since we’re an evidence-based practice, we believe in providing patients with evidence of their progress. When you come to our practice for any reason, we will perform various tests at your initial consultation.

There are two main reasons we perform these assessments. The first is so that we can find the source of your pain. The second reason is that analyzing factors such as movement will help us see how your everyday movement choices have impacted your health.

Selective Functional Movement Assessment (SFMA) is one of the systems we use to discover any problematic movement patterns. Once we discover these through watching you move your upper and lower body, we can better treat the source of your pain as well as work out some solutions to help minimize your pain and maximize your freedom of movement.

Sports-specific Assessment

While movement occurs in all sports, it doesn’t happen the same way across all activities. If you play golf, for example, you have dramatically different movements than someone who swims or skateboards.

Our chiropractic team is made of individuals who are experts at watching you move, as well as observing how your body interacts with any athletic equipment. When you book a sports chiropractic consultation with us, we want to know and see as much as possible about your athletic performance.

Depending on the sport, we can watch you perform and look over your equipment, sports shoes, or other athletic apparel as you move. This is particularly helpful for a sport like golf in which your golf clubs impact your weight distribution and wear patterns for each joint and muscle group involved in your golf swing. Since this includes your shoulders, elbows, wrists, back, hips, knees, ankles, feet, and others, an improved understanding of your equipment-body interface can profoundly impact your game and your quality of life.

A Solid Foundation

Sports is more than winning a few more trophies or even breaking a personal best record. Whether at the top of your game or not, playing your sport should make you feel on top of the world.

While mind-over-matter can do quite a bit, the only thing that can bring you better health is building it one muscle group, joint, and organ system at a time. Our practice specializes in giving you the necessary tools to improve your lifestyle. This can include joining a fitness community such as CrossFit Eminence or NeuAbility for added guidance and accountability. It can also involve making better dietary choices or engaging in mindfulness practices such as meditation or deep breathing.

Professional-level Rehabilitation

There are several excellent reasons you see chiropractic care at every National Football League (NFL) game and most Major League Baseball (MLB) games. Chiropractic care is an affordable and effective way to treat sports injuries.

While a quick adjustment for an ailing knee or wobbly ankle isn’t a replacement for longer-term rehabilitation care, it can get a player back into a game in minutes. Such emergency sideline care can also be the beginning of longer-term rehabilitation. This is because every chiropractic adjustment begins with an assessment that can provide valuable data for starting treatment immediately.

Chiropractic rehabilitation has a distinct advantage over traditional rehabilitation because it targets the underlying cause of pain. Whether it’s from challenging movement patterns, overuse, or the result of a disease process, we search for its sources and treat any related issues. We also don’t hesitate to refer to a highly-qualified physical therapist at Mountain View Pain Center for specialized pain management interventions.

Sports Safety Starts With Prevention

While comprehensive and quick care is crucial for rehabilitation, there’s nothing better than avoiding an injury in the first place. There are many ways our practice can help you minimize your risk of sports-related injuries.

Building muscle strength and increasing joint mobility is crucial for maximizing performance and minimizing risk. Adding nutrient-dense foods, strategic supplements, and research-based mindfulness practices can help create a climate that encourages sustained performance and incremental improvement.

Considering Sports Rehabilitation?

We hope you’ve enjoyed learning why athletes routinely seek out sports chiropractic care. If you have any questions or want to schedule a sports-focused consultation, please get in touch with our Dorsa Chiropractic team for more information.