Sports Chiropractic

Have you ever wondered what makes Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong, Kaka and Michael Jordon the elite athletes they are? Aswell as being extremely talented individuals these group of athletes are all under specific chiropractic care on a regular basis and rarely ever injured. Maybe a coincidence maybe not!

Ever since chiropractic began sports players from all abilities have used chiropractic to help with sporting injuries and to aid recovery. Many sports stars from around the world of sport are now taking advantage of the benefits of chiropractic. The majority of sporting injuries seen are extremity injuries such as ankle, knee, wrist, elbow and shoulder as well as spinal pain.

Many sports injuries are treated with physiotherapy that tend to work on soft tissues and treat patient's symptoms, using a variety of soft tissue techniques but fail to recognize the cause of soft tissue injury. Research has shown that tight musculature, weakness and trigger points (muscle knots) arise due to pressure on the nerve that works a particular muscle. If a nerve supplying a particular muscle or joint is irritated or has pressure on it from misaligned vertebrae then the vital messages that the brain sends out will not be relayed to the muscle/s as it should do and the muscle will constantly fail resulting in injury.

Chiropractic care accesses not only soft tissue symptoms but also the underlying cause by taking the pressure of the nerves responsible with specific spinal and extremity adjustments.

Sports Chiropractic care also accesses the biomechanics of the human skeleton and posture analysis. For example many lower extremity injuries such as knee and ankle pain can arise from misaligned pelvic joints. A misaligned pelvis changes the whole biomechanics of the joints in the knees and ankles causing pain to arise in these areas. Chiropractic care specifically realigns the misaligned joints and restores the normal biomechanics.

Dr Gonstead pioneered extremity analyses and adjusting. He not only recognized the importance of addressing the biomechanics of the spine and pelvis, but also to make sure that the joints in the rest of the body had correct alignment. For example if a patient has shoulder pain after injuring the shoulder in a sporting event it is highly likely that the joint has become misaligned. And so chiropractors will specifically and gently with care reposition the misaligned joint as well as well as assessing soft tissue injury giving the body the best chance to heal.