Did you know around 90 percent of world-class athletes receive regular chiropractic care? Since maintaining optimal health and performance is essential for continually playing sports, many athletes use chiropractic care to keep doing what they love. If you or a loved one plays sports, you know how important it is to prevent injuries. An injury can lead to you not being able to play with the team, having health issues, and/or needing drugs or invasive surgeries. Luckily, chiropractic provides an all-natural, non-invasive, and drug-free approach to health and wellness. Chiropractic care helps you maintain optimal health and prevent injuries. Let’s take a look at the top benefits of chiropractic care for athletes.

Boost Your Sports Performance

When it comes to playing sports, performance is a critical component. If you are suffering from a spine misalignment or other injury, this can significantly interfere with your body’s ability to function and communicate with the brain. A licensed sports chiropractor can perform gentle, safe adjustments that restore the spine back into correct alignment. In turn, this will help an athlete maintain a healthy spine that works properly with the rest of the body. Since spine misalignments are often the root cause of many health conditions, chiropractic care can help treat any misalignments. When misalignments are treated, this helps reduce or remove any pain, discomfort, or stress that an athlete is experiencing. Indeed, regular adjustments can help an athlete feel better and thus, improve their body’s performance, which is a top priority no matter what sport you play.

Decrease Your Pain

From training to competing, athletes can experience pain from their strict schedules and daily exercise routines. This wear and tear can lead to spine misalignments. The spine plays a key role in the body’s nervous system, so when it is out of alignment, this causes an athlete to experience pain, discomfort, stress, and other health issues. A chiropractor can perform effective, all-natural adjustments designed to restore spine misalignments. When your spine is restored back into alignment, this ensures optimal nervous system communications from the brain to body. All of this is done without any harsh drugs or risky, invasive surgeries. Drugs and surgery are expensive, pain medications come with unpleasant side effects, and surgeries can leave you sitting on the sidelines for months during recovery.

Prevent Sports Related Injuries

Regardless of the type of sport you play, preventing injuries is another top priority. Not only are injuries painful and keep you out of the game, they also can lead to other injuries. This is not what you want or need as an athlete. Chiropractors understand these concerns and can help keep your musculoskeletal system working properly. When the body is working properly, this helps prevent injuries both at practice and games. 

Additionally, sports chiropractors provide customized treatment plans that are beneficial for the specific type of sport you play and common injuries that occur. With a custom plan, the chiropractor can perform special techniques designed to improve your range of motion, flexibility, performance, balance, and posture. In turn, this helps athletes achieve optimal sports performance and makes their bodies less prone to injuries.

Speed Up Recovery Times

No treatment can prevent injuries and health issues entirely. This is just part of playing sports. Most athletes find that the joy of playing outweighs the downside of injuries. If you have a sports injury, chiropractic care can help speed up recovery times. Depending on where you go, your chiropractor will probably use a variety of all-natural techniques designed to promote faster healing. This may include massages, stretching exercises, dry needling, and tools to help your body function better. When your body is working properly, it can heal itself naturally without any neurological interferences. Additionally, your chiropractor may recommend you adjust your sleep cycles to receive more rest, which helps the body also heal itself.

We hope you enjoyed this week’s article discussing the benefits of chiropractic care for athletes everywhere. Before you turn to pain medications and surgery, consider a proven alternative that gets results without the side effects, long recovery times, and high costs. If you are looking for the best sports chiropractor in Portage, MI, contact West Michigan Chiropractic today. Our Portage Chiropractors are dedicated to helping you achieve your fullest potential in life both on and off the field.