Whether you’re a professional runner who competes at an athletic level or an amateur runner who enjoys it as a hobby on the weekends, visiting a sports chiropractor could totally transform your abilities. Making regular appointments with a professional for adjustments and massage therapy can improve your overall health, help you recover more quickly from injuries, and support you so you can smash your running goals.
Not only can chiropractors help you recover from specific injuries attained while running, but they can also help keep your body in optimum condition, so you can carry on running for as long as you like. While a visit to any chiropractor can make you into a better runner, making an appointment with a chiropractor who specializes in sports injuries will give you the best results.
What is a sports chiropractor?
A sports chiropractor has completed comprehensive training, allowing them to assess, evaluate, and diagnose muscular-skeletal problems that arise when taking part in sports. They specialize in diagnosing, preventing, and treating injuries that have an impact on your body’s muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints.
What a chiropractor can do for you
There are four main types of chiropractic treatments to heal running injuries:
- Graston Technique: This method breaks down the surface-level scar issue through the use of hand-held stainless steel tools.
- Active Release Technique (ART): ART combines stretching and massage, applying deep tension while carefully moving a joint through its range of motion.
- Electrical Muscle Simulation (EMS): EMS involves releasing tension by stimulating surface muscles.
- Functional Dry Needling: This technique releases tension in trigger points through deep muscle stimulation with needles.
Boost your recovery
Whether you run twice a day or once a week, it’s almost certain that you’re going to get injured at some point. A chiropractor can help you recover quickly from any injury, so you can get back to doing what you love as soon as possible. Recovering after an injury can be a difficult and drawn-out experience, especially if you’re going it alone.
Standard physical therapy can help heal your muscles and soft tissue following a sports injury. However, as well as healing your soft tissue and muscles, a sports chiropractor can also increase the mobility of your stiff joints after they’ve been injured. During an examination with a sports chiropractor, they’ll take a look at:
- How you stand still
- How you move
- How well your knees are aligned
- How well your hips are aligned
- What the arch of your foot looks like
When they’ve assessed these physical aspects, your sports chiropractor will then give you a diagnosis and put together a personalized treatment plan for you to follow.
Standard sports chiropractor adjustments
Chiropractors specialize in studying the body as a whole and aligning it for optimum balance and well-being. Many runners enjoy all kinds of physical benefits by having regular chiropractic adjustments to maintain their body’s balance. Balance can easily be altered through the impact of running and even everyday stress. Making sure the body is properly aligned can help relieve pain and tension before it becomes a serious issue.
A simple chiropractic adjustment can relieve tension you’re unaware of. Chronic tension and pain can often go on for so long that we can’t remember life without them. After your chiropractor correctly realigns your body, you could feel like a whole different person! The pain that you have to push through could disappear completely, allowing you to enjoy running even more than you already do.
Prevent injury with a sports chiropractor
Attending regular chiropractic appointments is one of the very best ways of preventing injury and ensuring optimal performance. By making sure your body is fine-tuned and working at maximum capacity, you’re much less likely to get injured and more likely to achieve your running goals.
Your chiropractor will be able to discover imbalances within your body that could lead to injury and fix them before they become a real problem. When your body’s in perfect balance, your joints and muscles work more efficiently, making the most of your body’s resources and turning you into a better runner.
Misalignment is one of the most common problems runners experience because it’s caused by so many different things. Running on the same type of surface over a long period of time, running on slanted ground (such as a beach), or not replacing your running shoes often enough can all result in misalignment.
You can help prevent this by varying your running surfaces and remembering to buy new running shoes when yours wear out. But the best way is to see a chiropractor who will let you know if your body is misaligned and what you can do about it.
Make an appointment today
Whatever type of runner you are, you can benefit by making an appointment to see a chiropractor. Not only will they be able to improve your performance as a runner, but they can also help you quickly and properly recover from injuries, as well as get your body in optimum condition so you avoid injuries in the future.
About the author
Matt has been helping providers within the healthcare setting for over a decade. He realizes how best to solve a patient’s problem by understanding the individualism of each patient. Therefore knowing what their true needs are. To focus on the patient and the “Why” they need their particular service that goes beyond the initial reason for them to seek treatment.
Matt has been with Veeva since 2018. He also has access to over 75 years of combined real-life hands-on experiences from the many doctors within the Veeva Chiropractic landscape.
