At The Hillsborough Chiropractic Clinic in Sheffield, we're passionate about helping people achieve optimal health and well-being. As such, we recognise the significant role chiropractic care can play in supporting athletes.
This article will guide you through common sports injuries that our chiropractors can effectively address. We'll delve into specific areas like neck strains and back injuries, and explore how chiropractic care can benefit athletes in various sports.
If you're an athlete in Sheffield dealing with a sports injury, we encourage you to consider the potential benefits of chiropractic care as part of your recovery journey. Read on to learn how we can help you overcome common sports injuries and return to your peak performance.
What is Chiropractic Care?
There are many myths and misconceptions surrounding chiropractic care, leaving lots of people unfamiliar with what it actually is. Well, we’re here to inform you reliably. Chiropractic treatment involves a qualified chiropractor using their hands to apply pressure in various areas of the body (predominantly joints) in order to treat musculoskeletal issues. These are known as adjustments.
Chiropractic adjustments ultimately aim to restore motion, improve function and alleviate pain. As such, they can be used to effectively treat many ailments - including those related to sports injuries.
How Can Chiropractic Adjustment Benefit Athletes?
Reduce Stiffness
It isn’t uncommon for many athletes to struggle with stiffness in different areas of their body. This commonly occurs as a result of the overuse of muscles and can be made worse when you don’t take the necessary steps to warm up, cool down and stretch before and after exercising. Equally, if an athlete takes a break from their sport then returns to activity without easing back into it properly, this can also cause stiffness.
Chiropractic care can help to relieve and prevent muscle tension, subsequently alleviating stiffness. This in turn can then increase an athlete’s range of motion, helping to enhance their overall performance.
Prevent Injuries
Chiropractic care is an effective way to maintain the health of your body, especially as an athlete. Staying physically fit and healthy is key to avoiding injuries when partaking in physical activity, especially high intensity sports.
Chiropractic treatment contributes to better spinal function and joint mobility, which in turn helps to maintain physical health and contribute to improved athletic performance. Along with other benefits, such as reduced inflammation and improved muscle tone, this can ultimately help to prevent sports injuries from occurring in the first place.
Avoiding injuries is not only ideal for your health, but for your sporting career and milestones!
Reduce Recovery Time
Sometimes sports injuries are unavoidable, especially for high contact sports, such as rugby or boxing. A combination of chiropractic treatment, sports massage and physical therapy all contribute to easing the pain and inflammation associated with sports injuries. Chiropractic treatment and soft tissue techniques can also be used to help treat fascia tension, which has otherwise been associated with longer recovery times following serious sports injuries.
Specific Injuries Chiropractic Can Help With
Tennis Elbow
Tennis elbow is a common injury sustained by tennis players, often as a result of repeated stress on the muscles and tendons located in the elbow. The resulting symptoms include pain and tenderness, often around the outside of the elbow - although, it can radiate into the forearm and wrist, also.
Chiropractors can address the root cause of the pain associated with tennis elbow. They can use massage and manipulation techniques to help relieve pain and stiffness. They may also need to address any problems with your neck and upper back which can have an effect on elbow pain. They may also give you exercises to reduce tension in some muscles, and strengthen other muscles, allowing for better movement.
Shin Splints
Shin splints are a common injury in many sports. They are considered an overuse injury, where the muscles and tendons in your lower legs are stressed, leading to pain and/or tenderness felt behind the shin(s).
Multiple sports can cause shin splints, including:
● Running
● Long jump
● Basketball/ netball
● Football
● Gymnastics
Evidence suggests that, as well as overuse, shin splints could be related to tight muscles in the back of your calf and weak muscles in the front of your lower leg. Chiropractors can suggest effective stretching and strengthening exercises to keep these muscles balanced, reducing the likelihood of you experiencing shin splints.
As for existing shin splints, they can check the function of your foot and leg which, in combination with massage techniques for tight leg muscles, can reduce the leg pain you experience.
Muscle Tears
During intense exercise and physical activity, muscle tears are all too common. These can be incredibly painful, with pain being either sudden or gradual and often accompanied by tenderness, swelling and bruising.
There are various causes of muscle tears, including:
● Overexertion
● Trauma (e.g. from a fall or collision)
● Improper warm-up
● Repetitive strain
● Previous injuries
Treating a torn muscle often involves rest, compression, elevation and icing the area. Chiropractic treatment may involve taping techniques or myofascial dry needling which can help to reduce pressure on the site of injury or reduce local muscle spasm.
Chiropractors can also use massage techniques like trigger point therapy or myofascial release techniques to help improve muscle function.
Sprains & Strains
Strains and sprains are some of the most common injuries sustained when partaking in sports - both by amateurs and professionals alike. They’re often caused by overuse or minor trauma, or even a combination of both.
One of the best ways to treat this is to improve function around the area by addressing any joint problems in the surrounding areas, improving muscle function and using strength or stretching exercises to help improve function and reduce strain on the injured tissues.
Sheffield Chiropractors
As you can see, chiropractic treatment can be incredibly beneficial for athletes or anyone who partakes in sport as a hobby, helping to not only prevent you from sustaining common injuries in the first place, but relieving pain and ensuring an efficient and speedy recovery when you are injured.
Whether you partake in sports on a leisurely or professional basis, looking after your body and maintaining your physical health is essential. Our experienced chiropractors are here to help at The Hillsborough Chiropractic Clinic.
We can offer both chiropractic adjustments and dry needling as part of our sports injury treatment, as well as sports massage therapy. If you’d like to enquire about how we can support your recovery, then don’t hesitate to get in touch with us today.
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