Whether this is your first marathon run or your fiftieth, it’s essential that you maximize your sports performance and prevent injuries. Since running is a high impact sport, this can cause back pain, damaged muscles, pinched nerves, and even skeletal damage. Aside from your training routine, it’s recommended to also incorporate treatments to prepare your body for a big marathon and keep your body in peak condition. Common treatments include acupuncture, chiropractic care, Kinesio Taping, and massage therapy. Let’s take a look at how you can maximize your marathon runs with chiropractic.
How Can Chiropractors Help Marathon Runners?
To prepare for a marathon, runners must follow a strict training routine to prepare their body for long distance running. Like other athletes, runners can greatly benefit from visiting their local chiropractor to boost their performance rate, maintain a healthy spine alignment, treat past injuries or strains, or prevent future injuries.
Promote a Faster Recovery Rate from Injuries or Strains
If you are suffering from a past running injury, a chiropractor can help promote a quicker healing process. These holistic experts do this by performing specific adjustments, which boost blood circulation and blood flow to the injuries, as well as helping the body heal itself naturally. Chiropractors can treat a wide range of common health concerns among runners, including back, ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, and neck pain. Indeed, chiropractors can perform adjustments that encourage the soft tissue around affected joints to heal, thus promoting a faster recovery rate to any injuries.
Better Pain Management
If you have a running injury, you already know how painful and uncomfortable this is. Depending on your marathon schedules, you may have to postpone your runs due to an injury. Luckily, chiropractors are skilled at performing gentle, safe, and effective adjustments designed to decrease any pain. For those trying to avoid harsh drugs and invasive surgeries, this is an excellent, all-natural alternative proven to work. Most runners do not want to wait weeks or months to address their pain, which is why chiropractic is a great option. In general, most chiropractic patients notice an immediate improvement to their pain after a few adjustments. This can reduce the need for pain-relief medications and their known side effects that can negatively impact an athlete’s ability to train and participate in marathons.
Prevent Future Injuries
For many runners, they ignore any pain, stiffness, or injury they are experiencing. These runners may wait until their race is over or until the pain is unbearable. As you can imagine, running on an injured ankle, knee, or hip with a spine misalignment can cause additional pain and injuries. A better, safer option is to seek out treatment before an injury occurs or soon after you experience an injury. Chiropractors use a whole body approach to health, which means these experts will help runners prevent future injuries. This is done by performing gentle treatments that help the body maintain proper spine alignment, which positively impacts the rest of the body. With a properly aligned body, runners can enjoy better sports performance and lower risk for becoming injured during training or at an event.
Promote Optimal Sports Performance
By visiting your local chiropractor, you will experience less pain, discomfort, and faster healing with any current or past injuries. In turn, chiropractors will help runners achieve optimal sports performance to take on their strict training schedules and marathon races. A runner that has a healthy spine alignment and proper balance will find it easier to maximize their body’s running capabilities. Your local chiropractor may also suggest some tips to maintain your performance and health, such as changing up the running surface (i.e. track, sidewalk, beach, treadmill, etc.), regularly replacing worn out running shoes, and remembering to properly stretch before and after workouts.
Common Types of Sports Chiropractic Treatments
Before your first visit, call your local sports chiropractor to inquire about which type of treatments they offer for runners. The four listed below are the most common treatments.
- Active Release Technique (ART) – This technique applies deep tension while carefully moving a joint through its range of motion. Chiropractors combine massage and stretching, which helps address and treat adhesions in the muscles.
- Graston Technique – This technique is designed to break down any surface-level scar tissue with hand-held stainless steel tools.
- Functional Dry Needling – This technique is designed to release tension in trigger points by applying deep muscle stimulation with needles, which is particularly helpful for the psoas muscle (hip flexor muscle).
- Electrical Muscle Stimulation (EMS) – This treatment releases tension by stimulating any surface muscles.
By receiving regular chiropractic adjustments and following a healthy lifestyle, runners can maximize their marathon runs and achieve better health. A chiropractor can keep a runner’s spine in proper alignment, which will make it easier to train and prepare for races. If you are looking for a sports chiropractor near you, contact West Michigan Chiropractic in Portage, MI today.