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Are Chiropractors Good For Athletes?

Kube Medical • 29 March 2021

You’re at the gym, playing a game, in the garden, or just walking down the street, and you feel a twinge. You have torn a muscle. These often minor strains and tears can be the sign of an underlying musculoskeletal problem.
 
A doctor can give you painkillers and a massage therapist can ease your pain, but a licensed chiropractor can give you relief, diagnose the cause of the problem, and give you treatment and strategies that will help prevent it from happening again. Whether you are a professional athlete, an amateur, or have just injured yourself in everyday life, a chiropractor can be the answer not only to that painful muscle but also better overall health.

For a professional athlete, even without an injury, a chiropractor can tune your body and give you that leading edge.

Why A Chiropractor?
Modern-day life is complex and so are our bodies. Even an everyday activity like sitting in the office, staring at the computer, can place pressure on our musculoskeletal system. The strain on our bodies from a gym workout or the weekly game of tennis can be great. The demands that professional athletes place on their bodies are enormous.

Often what seems minor, such as a torn muscle, can actually be a symptom of a greater problem. That is where a chiropractor can help. All of our bones and muscles radiate from the spine and a chiropractor is a spinal system expert.

Like the local massage therapist, or physical practitioner (physiotherapist), a chiropractor can massage your body and give relief for your torn muscle. They can also manipulate your spine and not only help prevent the injury from happening again but also help the whole of your body to function at a premium.

This can lead to a quick recovery and an amazing feeling of complete health for the everyday person or the amateur sportsperson. For a professional athlete it can be the difference between success and failure.

How Does Chiropractic Practice Work?
A visit to a local massage shop follows a familiar routine. A change of clothes, a cursory question about any pain issues, and the massage commences. Your local doctor will ask about your torn muscle, maybe prescribe a painkiller, and advise rest. The physiotherapist will massage a little, and give you exercises to make the injury better. These practitioners will not give you a long term solution to stop the problem from recurring.

Can a Chiropractor Help With a Torn Muscle
A good chiropractor can certainly help with a torn muscle. They will give you pain relief and also create a strategy to prevent future injury. The chiropractor has gone through extensive training in musculoskeletal problems and will do an in-depth examination of the cause of your torn muscle, often including an X-Ray. They will then create a course of treatment that will not only ease your pain but help your body function properly again. If you are a professional athlete, a chiropractor may be the only sensible choice.

Chiropractic treatment usually involves manipulation of the spine, tissues, and joints, to remove any curvature or dysfunction. Different chiropractors will use different techniques to apply pressure at varying velocity, amplitude, duration, and frequency. They will apply this treatment to several different areas of the spine and the body.

Chiropractic practice is very successful in the treatment of lower back pain. A report in the New England Journal of Medicine states there is no longer any dispute that some patients with acute lower back pain will find chiropractic treatment to be an effective symptomatic therapy.

Just as with a pain in the lower back, a muscular tear is usually the result of another problem. Often a misalignment of the spine can lead to problems with muscles and ligaments in other places. This defective curvature of the spine will place undue stress on other muscles. Treatment of the lower back, and the spine as a whole, can alleviate and prevent many different problems.

Why Do Patients Prefer Chiropractors?
A study in the U.S.A. on the treatment of lower back pain compared patient’s satisfaction with spinal manipulation from chiropractors versus medical care or physical treatment. Chiropractic patients reported the highest satisfaction.

Another study found chiropractors also gave better self-care and treatment advice in a helpful communicative style. Patients are also more likely to return to chiropractors if their symptoms reoccur.

Is It Safe?
Before we allow a practitioner to place pressure on our spine, it is important to know if it is safe.

Negative information is rare. Most of the available studies have been commissioned by chiropractic organizations. sciencebasedmedicine.org quotes in an article “It is surprising that after over a century of chiropractic manipulation, only one random control trial has attempted to evaluate its safety.”

However, the World Health Organization has found chiropractic care, in general, is safe when employed skillfully and appropriately.

Most countries have chiropractic boards that regulate chiropractic practitioners.

Many chiropractors have studied for up to eight years before registration. Some will argue that their training is better than most medical practitioners.

One study dealt with neck pain after spinal manipulation. 30% experienced some increased pain. The conclusion did advise that the modification of treatment methods could lessen these occurrences.

Another study reports that adverse effects are benign and short-term and severe ones are rare. This study was carried out by two chiropractors.

Conclusion
Chiropractic treatment can offer an effective treatment for a torn muscle or give a professional athlete’s body a great tune-up. It is however advised to research and shop around before you choose a chiropractor.


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