It’s no secret that athletes of all kinds consider chiropractic care an integral part of their routine. Every NFL team has their own chiropractor. Chiropractors have been noticed treating athletes at the Olympics, the World Cup, the Boston Marathon, and CrossFit Games. Whether you’re a soccer player, CrossFitter, yogi, football player, martial artist, runner, or fencer, chiropractic can help take you to the next level in your sport. Here are five reasons that athletes use chiropractic to optimize their performance.
1. Chiropractors can assess for muscular imbalances that make one more prone to injury. The spine protects the spinal cord and nerves traveling from the brain to every part of the body. When prolonged stress on the spine puts damaging tension on the spinal nerves, the muscles lose proper nerve control and become imbalanced and asymmetrical. When muscles are asymmetrically activated but continually trained with symmetrical exercise, the asymmetry increases, thereby increasing the risk of injury. At O’Maley Wellness Center, we have special technology that will assess the nerve control of muscles supporting the spine within minutes using a non-invasive EMG scan. Chiropractic adjustments improve muscular coordination and control by reducing nerve interference caused by spinal imbalance.
2. Chiropractors are experts in nutrition, some with advanced sports or clinical nutrition training beyond their chiropractic education, and can make recommendations to help you be sure you’re getting the most out of your workouts by supporting them with proper nutrient intake.
3. Chiropractic can help if you may be over-training and actually causing damage to your health and fitness. The stress of over-training with high intensity exercise over time can lock your body into operating from its emergency, or “fight or flight”, state of the nervous system. In this state, the body is not geared toward regular organ function, healing and maintenance. This can cause a feeling of being tired or run down, sore, ill, cravings for sweets and carbohydrates, trouble sleeping, or digestion problems. As a part of the three-technology analysis we do with the Insight Millenium at O’Maley Wellness Center, Heart Rate Variability shows if over-training may be putting the nervous system into a state of distress. Gentle chiropractic adjustments turn down the stress switch and specific recommendations will be made to bring the body back into healthy rhythm.
4. Chiropractors are experts in human biomechanics. We find areas of localized weakness and faulty motion. Many chiropractors can make specific recommendations to make certain exercises safer or more effective, or use tools like RockTape to stabilize and support the muscles to work better during specific movements.
5. Athletes use chiropractic care not only to prevent future problems, but because it helps them to perform better and gives them an extra edge. Tiger Woods believes that chiropractic is as important to his training as practicing his swing. Evander Holyfield said that he got adjusted three times a week and always before getting in the ring. Tom Brady, Jerry Rice, and Emmitt Smith have all commented that regular chiropractic was key in making them better players. Michael Jordan once said, “I didn’t know how much I could improve until I started seeing a chiropractor. Since I’ve been in chiropractic, I’ve improved by leaps and bounds, both mentally and physically.”
