Many top athletes have a secret weapon when it comes to making sure their bodies are ready for competition. They use a sports chiropractor to alleviate musculoskeletal pain and to speed up natural healing when they do suffer an injury. Chiropractic care can also help them improve muscle function, increase strength and range of motion, and allow them to sleep better so their bodies can restore the energy they burn during the day. Here's more on how a sports chiropractor keeps you at the top of your game.

Pain Relief

Just like regular chiropractors, those who practice sports chiropractic care use musculoskeletal adjustments, massage therapy, hot or cold treatments, and ultrasound therapy, among other methods to alleviate pain associated with injuries to joints, soft tissue, and the nervous system. They can treat all the same conditions a regular chiropractor can, but usually, they focus on the diagnosis and treatment of sports-related injuries.Athletes are prone to getting injuries to their musculoskeletal system because they use their joints, muscles, tendons, and ligaments to perform the actions they need to play their sports. Damage to these body parts can happen over time due to repetitive motion or they can happen at once with a blow, twist, or fall. A sports chiropractor can treat pain from both acute and chronic conditions in athletes.

Accelerate Natural Healing

Your body already knows how to heal itself, but it can take a long time without any medical intervention, especially if you aren't able to rest your body long enough for it to heal itself properly. Your general physician can prescribe medication to help you control your pain, but this isn't really helping your body heal more quickly. It's just masking the pain so you can continue to perform at a high level.This isn't to say that medicine doesn't have a place in the healing process. It can certainly be part of the solution, but so can chiropractic care. In fact, chiropractic services are usually not a standalone treatment. They're typically a complementary treatment that works to speed up your body's healing process by making sure it's in the optimal position to facilitate recovery.For example, sports chiropractic care correctly aligns the spine so it's not pinching nerves or causing headaches. It also releases muscle tension, reduces inflammation, improves blood circulation, and can reestablish optimal joint motion. These treatments put your body in the best conditions to allow it to heal itself as quickly as possible.

Improve Muscle Function

When your body is out of balance, injuries are more likely to occur. This is the case when your muscles aren't functioning the way they should. For instance, poor posture can cause the muscles in your back to weaken, putting more pressure on other muscles to compensate for their weakness. When a muscle overcompensates, it is stressed to the point where it can be more easily injured. Chiropractic care is focused on restoring balance in your body so that every muscle is handling the load it should. It does this by strengthening the muscles that have become weak due to various factors including poor posture. Chiropractors usually provide a customized physical therapy plan for athletes to put their bodies back in balance, which in turn, decreases their susceptibility to injury.

Improve Strength and Range of Motion

A primary chiropractic treatment is a spinal adjustment, which returns the spine to its proper position. When a spine is misaligned, it impacts blood flow. Restricted blood flow leads to tight muscles, and when your muscles are tight, they can't move as well as they should. But, after a spinal adjustment, your circulation improves because misaligned disks aren't impeding it. This enhanced circulation helps increase flexibility and range of motion throughout your body.Over time, with regular spinal adjustments, your spine gets stronger so that it stays in the right position for a longer period of time. As such, your body is stronger as well because it's getting the proper amount of blood flow to the joints and muscles. And, again, a stronger body allows you to perform your sport with a lower risk of injury.

Better Sleep

While you're asleep, your body is hard at work repairing itself, but only if you're getting quality sleep. Chiropractic care reduces pain and increases feelings of well-being so that you can get the type of sleep your body needs to restore the energy you've used throughout the day. If you're not getting a good night's sleep, it could be because your body is out of balance or your spine is misaligned. The benefits of quality sleep are well known, not just for athletes, but for everyone. But athletes put their bodies through so much every day that injuries and misalignments can really impact their capabilities. Regular chiropractic care removes those barriers that are preventing the sleep your body needs.

Conclusion

As an athlete, you want to be able to perform at your best at all times. If your body is betraying you and you're not meeting your performance goals, or you've suffered an injury you just can't seem to recover from, give a sports chiropractor a chance to help you. What have you got to lose?