Sports are great in that they help kids stay outside, active, and learn about the importance of team building. However, as fun as they are, there’s always a chance of injury.
Sports can cause multiple injuries, such as to the back, shoulders, knees, neck, and ankles. This can put a damper on athletic activities and prevent your child from participating in sports with their friends due to pain or the possibility of worsening an injury.
Fortunately, Summit Chiropractic and Sports Institute’s sports injury chiropractor can provide the relief your child needs. Below, we’ll explore a couple of ways that we can help with your child’s recovery.
Top 5 Ways a Sports Injury Chiropractor Can Treat and Prevent Sports Injuries
Have you been considering bringing your child to see a sports injury chiropractor? Here are five ways we can assist:
Spinal Alignment
You might be surprised to know that issues within the spine can affect various other parts of the body. If your child has an injury from participating in sports, one of the first things we do is a spinal adjustment.
This can restore your child’s spine to the proper alignment and get rid of any pain or tension throughout the rest of the body. Not to mention, it helps the body work more efficiently and reduces the chance that your child will get injured again.
Once the spine is realigned, your child may receive various benefits, such as increased flexibility, improved functioning, better posture, and reduced pain. Keep in mind that, despite your child’s symptoms, it can be difficult to determine whether the spine is out of alignment.
It takes a professional, such as the chiropractic team here at Summit Chiropractic and Sports Institute, to diagnose the underlying issue and help your child get better in the long run. Leaving a spinal misalignment untreated can cause your child’s symptoms to progress and get more uncomfortable over time, which can make your child miss out on sports activities with their friends and teammates. The good news is that chiropractic care makes getting relief easier than ever.
Range of Motion Issues
Let’s say your child injured their shoulder in a football game. They went from throwing great to now being barely able to lift their arm. Shoulder injuries and other arm injuries can drastically impact your athlete’s range of motion by preventing them from moving their arm at different angles without experiencing pain.
Back injuries can also affect mobility by making it hard to bend over or stretch as the sport requires. Our sports injury chiropractor has numerous ways to perform soft tissue treatment to enhance healing, reduce inflammation, and restore mobility to help relieve pain. It is important to ensure that the muscles are healthy and that minimal scar tissue forms. This will help the joint injured to maintain its strength.
This can help them get back to the game in no time at all and help overall with their performance by ensuring they’re no longer in discomfort. Having the spine in the correct alignment can also decrease the chance of future injuries since your child will be able to bend, throw, and turn better than before and without creating as much tension in the muscles.
In addition to spinal realignments, we can help by providing multiple exercises that your child can practice from home to promote flexibility and strength. These may include basic stretches that will help your child flex their muscles and joints in a safe, gentle way, which can make it easier for them to adjust when they get back in the game.
Adjustments for an Energy Boost
Has your child been doing back-to-back practices in preparation for a big game? Perhaps, they’ve been working overtime on the field or court to ensure they’re performing at their best when the college recruiters come around.
As you can expect, doing the same activities over and over can have a significant impact on the muscles. This can lead to general fatigue, making your child too tired on the field, which can make them more susceptible to injury.
The standard chiropractic treatment for renewed energy is an adjustment, as it can trigger the central nervous system to start working better and increase energy. However, as chiropractors, we don’t just look at the fatigue by itself. We also check the body for any restrictions or issues that could be causing the fatigue or related symptoms.
We may also ask your athlete about their daily food choices, what activities they do on an average day, and how they are feeling mentally and physically. This can provide valuable insight into your child’s condition and help us treat them to the best of our ability.
Pain Relief
Sports injuries cause pain of all levels, depending on the location and extent of the injury. Your child may have strained their hamstrings, torn their ACL, or come down with tennis elbow. Whatever caused the injury, the first thing that a sports injury chiropractor will do is treat the injury to provide relief.
Our chiropractic methods do not involve pain medication. Instead, we take a natural approach by targeting the painful area with various chiropractic modalities to reduce inflammation and restore comfort. Then, if your child continues to have pain, we’ll work with you and them to create a treatment plan that prevents injuries down the line.
The great thing about choosing Summit Chiropractic and Sports Institute for sports injury pain relief is that we use multiple chiropractic, specialized soft tissue techniques and functional rehabilitation to mobilize and strengthen injuries. We also offer sport-specific performance programs that include strength training, conditioning, and nutritional guidance.
This means that when your child comes to our chiropractic office, they’ll get pain relief and also so much more. We provide multiple services that athletes can benefit from, including everything we mentioned above as well as cryotherapy.
Decreased Healing Time From Injuries
While some sports injuries can heal in as little as a week, serious injuries can take three months or more. What happens if your athlete participates in sports again without waiting until their recovery is complete? Typically, this leads to a repeat injury.
One of the things we do in sports injury recovery is facilitate the body’s self-healing by strengthening the body’s connection with the central nervous system. Spinal alignment is key to the body’s proper functioning, and we strive to ensure this is done well and to help your athlete maintain it for the best results on the field or court.
Chiropractic care can help your athlete heal faster from injuries by ensuring that the body is functioning at the optimal level from the inside out. You can feel confident that your child will heal at a good timeline under the careful guidance of Dr. Lopez and Dr. Gassman at our chiropractic clinc.
Dr. Lopez is board certified in the Active Release Technique, the Graston Technique, and Kinesio Tape–all of which are used by elite athletes to enhance function and performance. As a chiropractor, Dr. Lopez employs multiple specialized techniques to promote a speedy, safe recovery for every patient that comes in the door.
Conclusion
It might be hard to see your child in pain from a sports injury now, but relief is right around the corner. Our sports injury chiropractor can help realign your child’s spine, improve their flexibility, and reduce the chance of injury in future sports activities.
Help set your athlete up for success for all the seasons to come with the right chiropractic care.
Searching for a sports injury chiropractor? Summit Chiropractic and Sports Institute is conveniently located in the Spokane Valley, ready to assist with sports injuries of all types. Contact us today to book an appointment.