How Can a Chiropractor Help with Sport Injuries?

During a friendly game of basketball with your friends, you dribble the ball to the hoop making a scoring drive. You envision the play being shown on SportsCenter’s Top 10 Plays, but as you prepare to shoot, you feel a sharp pain in your lower back. You score the basket, but after that, you aren’t able to play to your fullest ability. In fact, the next day, you wake up with debilitating back pain. What should you do? Who can help you at a time like this? Although some medical doctors can simply prescribe pain medications, this treatment approach doesn’t address the real problem. As an expert in spinal musculature, your chiropractor can provide the care you need to get back on the court and performing your best.

Diagnosing Alignment Problems

Before beginning any treatment, your chiropractor will take a close look at the alignment of your spine, legs, and hips. Problems in these areas can greatly impact how your body performs not just in a sports setting but in everyday functions as well. By detecting the cause of your pain, your chiropractor can then properly treat the problem at its source, instead of the symptoms, for better healing and longer-lasting results.

Soft Tissue Laser Therapy

Some chiropractors use a revolutionary treatment called laser therapy, which can reduce pain and inflammation in injuries like sprains or strains. The photons of light are absorbed by the damaged cells, increasing the oxygen levels of the cells and promoting healing.

The Value of Therapeutic Exercises

Among the many exercises you could do to help your sports injury, there are three in particular that are beneficial for healing. Using bands, balls, and other materials, guided resistance therapy puts just the right amount of stress on certain body parts without causing pain. These gentle exercises allow muscles to improve slowly yet steadily.

In addition, your chiropractor may need to guide and retrain your body back into better alignment. After all, the nervous system consists of pathways throughout the body, and those pathways need to be clear for optimal healing. An easy way you can build up the muscles that support your spine and other skeletal structures is through endurance training. As you build up strength in these muscles and also maintain healthy posture, you can improve your range of motion, increase your activity level, and enjoy better balance and coordination.

When you have a minor sports injury, you can do so much more than just sit and wait for the pain to go away. Your chiropractor can realign your body, educate you on helpful exercises, and promote healing in a way that strengthens you and helps you avoid reinjury in the future.

About the Author

Dr. Chad Wills has been a practicing chiropractor for 20 years now. Above all else, he enjoys helping patients achieve more active, healthier lifestyles while also relieving their pain. Outside the practice, Dr. Wills trains and participates in triathlons, which means that he spends much of his free time swimming, cycling, and running. If you have questions about sports-related injuries or chiropractic care for sports injuries, you can reach Dr. Wills at Will Chiropractic by clicking here.