How Chiropractic Benefits Football Players
There is no doubt that football is a rough sport. At times it can be downright brutal, especially on the body. The sport sees a myriad of injuries, some serious, including head and neck, ankle, knee, and spinal. Chiropractic care is quickly becoming a popular, viable method of not only treating injuries but also for managing injury-related pain and even injury prevention. There are several specific benefits that football players can glean from chiropractic care.
A survey exploring the prevalence of chiropractic care in the National Football League (NFL) showed that of the team trainers surveyed, 77% responded they'd referred players to a chiropractor for treatment or evaluation. At that time, in 2002, 31% of NFL teams had a team chiropractor on staff. Now, ALL 32 of the NFL teams utilize chiropractic care for their players and staff, most having a team chiropractor regularly on-call and on the payroll. That should tell you something...
Moreover, college teams are also finding chiropractic care immensely helpful for their players. For example, Virginia Tech has a chiropractor, who routinely treats the players—helping their players recover from injuries (and more quickly at that as well) and improving the individual physical health of each player on the team. The doctor has an office in the sports complex and the trainers are able to schedule appointments for the athletes. And overall, the Virginia Tech football program says that chiropractic care and its availability to players and staff has hands down improved the quality of the training players now put in between games because they are in less pain and heal from injuries more quickly than they did prior to utilizing this type of care.
The benefits of chiropractic care for football players & other athletes are significant and numerous.
Improved Mobility
Chiropractic Manipulative Treatment (or CMT), aka the chiropractic adjustment, is one of the primary chiropractic therapies in sports medicine. A CMT helps increase flexibility and minimize or eliminate pain in movement.
Solid Body Maintenance
The brutality of football leads to frequent injuries. However, soreness and stiffness are even more commonplace. Many players use chiropractic care to ease the general pain that comes from overexertion and rough play. They may not be injured, per se, but are experiencing the normal pain that comes with the territory when one is an athlete.
Pain Relief
Chiropractic care has long been recognized as an effective pain management tool and now athletes are discovering the benefits of chiropractic therapy as well.
Chiropractic treatment modalities, as well as manual therapies, easily relieve headaches (particularly those stemming from head and neck injuries) of all types, including migraines and tension (or stress-induced) varieties. Chiropractic care also relieves shoulder pain and pain from ankle and knee injuries like sprains or strains through targeted treatments.
Chiropractors are trained uniquely to approach the body holistically via manual techniques, which relieve pressure from the spinal column and re-align the body internally so it can go to work healing itself as nature intended—without drugs or other foreign interference.
Injury Prevention
Those who receive chiropractic treatment for sports injuries experience better flexibility and mobility in the aftermath of an injury, which has also been linked to injury prevention in independent university and research studies. Additionally, chiropractic care can increase strength and, by making the body stronger, the body becomes more resistant to injury. So, the benefits are two-fold!
Increase Strength and Endurance
Chiropractic care is linked to increased muscular strength, studies show. While it is often thought of as a way to relieve pain, it effectively promotes increased strength in muscles after just a few treatment sessions. This can help athletes avoid injury by combining an increase in strength with the increased mobility they're also gaining from repeat therapy sessions at the chiropractor. This also generates a promotion of endurance and stamina naturally.
Sports-related Hernia Relief
A significant amount of athletes experience groin pain due to injury. Athletic pubalgia is one of the most common causes of injury-related groin pain. Also known as a sports hernia, athletic pubalgia causes significant pain for many football players at some point. Chiropractic care relieves the discomfort within 8 weeks when combined with certain at-home rehabilitative exercises.
Chiropractic care plays a very important role in injury prevention, whole body care, and pain relief for athletes in one of the roughest sports in the world—American Football. These benefits translate easily to other sports where an injury is a frequent occurrence. If you play football or are an athlete of a different sport but experience strain, sprain, or pain all the same...Then chiropractic care is a treatment method that will not only improve the state of your injuries but will improve the state of your game as well.
If you need a new chiropractor or have never been to see one in the past, consider giving Millar Chiropractic in Huntsville & Madison a try. They have 6 clinics to serve the area, with 2 of them being specialty laser clinics, utilizing cutting-edge laser technology and state-of-the-art decompression therapies. Come see us if you've been hurt playing sports—we can help!
Call us today at (256) 830-0000, and we'll link you up with one of our excellent doctors of chiropractic at a clinic nearest you in the Huntsville-Madison area.
Millar Chiropractic Clinics (Huntsville, AL) — The Road to Wellness…Starts Here.
