Sports Injuries

Chiropractic can be of great assistance whether you are an amateur, intermediate or professional sports person. Repetitive stresses while training or competing can result in decreases in joint movement or interference to joint movement. This in turn can interfere with the healthy working of your muscles and nerves. Not only can this cause pain (which is usually the primary reason that athletes consult chiropractors), but it can also interfere with the efficiency of how your body functions. Many sports people will find that not only can chiropractors help with pain and even in those athletes without pain, enhanced sporting function can be a further benefit. Chiropractic treatment aims to restore normal function to your joints and muscles as well as your nervous system, and may increase your control, co-ordination and muscle strength; this in turn can benefit sporting performance.

Massage can help, as can suitable exercises, stretches and training routines. However, if a joint is not functioning properly this can still influence the nerves, and it is the nerves that tell the muscles what to do. At Milton Keynes Chiropractic Clinic we do not just look at the muscles and exercises, we also look at the function of the joints and the effects upon nerve function to benefit the efficiency of sporting performance.

Regarding chronic problems, sometimes athletes have ignored the cause of the pain and just focussed on minimising the symptomatic pain. By continuing with the sport for too long without suitable treatment they may then find their selves with a chronic problem such as:

• Hamstring and calf strains

• Achilles tendon injuries

• Groin and thigh sprains

• Lower back pain

• Neck pain

• Tennis elbow

• Shoulder sprains (rotator cuff injuries) · Tendonitis

• Sciatica (often confused with hamstring pulls!)

(extract from BCA website)

ENHANCEMENT. If the tyre pressure on your car is incorrect, the steering wheel wobbles when you brake, the ride is less smooth, the fuel efficiency of the vehicle is decreased. Its not broken, it still works but it could work better. The same is the case of the body. When a joint is not functioning properly there can be a change to the muscle tension in that area, either of these variations in turn may cause pain. However, if it is not bad enough to cause pain but is contributory enough to change the smoothness of joint and muscle function this could arguably affect an athlete or sports persons performance.