3 Ways of Avoiding & Treating Soccer Injuries with Chiropractic
Soccer is one of the most popular team sports in the United States and offers an excellent form of exercise to children and adults alike. Unfortunately, the nature of the sport, the repeated movement and the chance of collision, add up to quite a few opportunities for injury.
Lower and upper extremity injuries, overuse injuries, and head, neck, and face injuries are commonplace. According to Stanford Children's Health, 88,000 children 8-14 were treated in an emergency room for soccer-related injuries.
#1: Use proper equipment
Donning proper fitting cleats, uniforms, and shin guards decrease the risk of being hurt in the first place. Make adjustments often, especially if the player is growing rapidly or fluctuates in weight.
#2: Get checked out by a chiropractor pre-season
Soccer players who allow their fitness less to lapse increase the chance of injury. Visit a Doctor of Chiropractic to ensure there are no underlying issues with participating in strenuous activity. A chiropractor is also able to make sure the spine is aligned and muscles and joints are strong and functioning properly.
#3: Pay attention to the surroundings
A field that is not kept up well offers a greater chance of turning an ankle or falling. It's vital to check out the playing area beforehand and note any uneven areas that could cause a player to trip.
In addition, consider the weather. Muddy, slick fields create extra issues, and particularly hot temperatures make players run the risk of dehydration or heat stroke. Prepare for weather issues in advance of the game.
If you take all of these precautions and yet still end up injured, there are several options for treatment. The injury is hopefully mild and will heal on its own after a few days of rest. However, more serious injuries require a visit to the doctor and 1 of these 3 treatments:
First, ice and elevate it: Keep weight off the injured area as much as possible and elevate it with pillows, making sure to keep the foot of the leg elevated with the knee bent at a 40-degree angle and the thigh of the same leg about a 40-degree angle. We naturally bend our joints slightly so that the tendons are relaxed. This is a more comfortable position. In order to relax the tendons around the knee, the knee must be bent 20 to 30 degrees.
Use an ice bag wrapped in a towel to minimize swelling and inflammation. If the injury is painful, over the counter medication helps reduce discomfort as well, but ice is great at reducing pain in of itself.
Then, take a break: The last decision you want to make is to begin playing too soon and re-injuring yourself. With more serious injuries, sitting out of a few games or maybe even an entire season is a difficult choice to make, but sometimes it is the best route to ensure the promotion of healing and health.
Talk to your chiropractor about how long a specific injury needs to recover correctly. Follow his advice closely, paying special attention to time and activity constraints so to avoid re-injury, premature return back to play, and degenerative or arthritic changes from occurring due to partially or incorrectly healed bones or muscles.
Finally, keep your chiropractic adjustments: Chiropractors are trained in treating the neuromusculoskeletal system as a whole. Many of the injuries suffered while playing soccer show an improvement after just a few chiropractic visits—no sitting out required! If you need a good and reputable chiropractor in the area, give Millar Chiropractic Clinics in the Huntsville-Madison area a try! This family of clinics is close-knit, very welcoming, and very professional; the doo will keep you strong, flexible, and able to avoid injury during this year's soccer season.
Millar Chiropractic has six office locations to better serve you—two of which are specialty clinics offering cold laser therapy, laser decompression therapy, and innovative, treatments of neuropathy pains and diabetic neuropathy.
A chiropractor can oversee an athletes rehab and beyond as he re-enters sports to help the player be able to withstand long practices and training by keeping the spinal aligned, thus able to move, twist, and turn without triggering pain and functioning at its best. Moreover, chiropractors can design nutritional and dietary strategies for maximum impact on the athletes' overall power and ability to stay alert and in the game at peak performance levels day in and day out.
Enjoying physical activity is essential to maintain a routine that provides a healthy, active lifestyle, and joining a soccer team is a great choice for children as well as adults looking to stay active and a little healthy competition. Knowing some advance precautions to put in place to avoid injury will help keep you strong and safe.
If you or your child do wind up hurt, however, there are various forms of treatment discussed above (i.e. chiropractic adjustment, manual therapy, elevating & icing the legs and feet, etc.) will lessen healing time greatly, maximize recovery potential, and get you back in the game quicker! Give Millar Chiropractic a call today at 256-830-0000 to schedule your next appointment before you get back out on the field! You may also call (800) GO–CHIRO to make an appointment if you need to