The Winning Combination to Gain a Competitive Edge in Your Sport
If you are a professional athlete or working to be a more dedicated one, you subject your body to perhaps the most severe of punishments. You actively push your body to the limit during workouts, practices and the main events. You’re no stranger to back and knee pain, joint injuries, sprains, strains and other injuries. In severe cases, you or your comrades have even coped with frightening spinal injuries.
The combination of a professional athlete and chiropractor is quickly becoming the “winning combination” throughout sports. Well-known and respected athletes with long, accomplished careers—including Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Joe Montana and Lance Armstrong—all attest to the benefits we discuss in this article. How can a chiropractor benefit you? They can help you gain a competitive edge.
“I would estimate that in excess of 90% of all world-class athletes use chiropractic care to prevent injuries and to increase their performance potential.”1
– Sean Atkins, PhD Exercise Physiologist
How Chiropractic Care Gives You a Competitive Edge
A number of professional American sport teams—including the NBA, NFL, MPB, PBA, NASCAR and more—staff chiropractors. Almost every professional sport produces a great amount of stress throughout the body. This stress leads to and results in a variety of painful, even career ending, injuries. Studies indicate that athletes who seek regular chiropractic care reap the following three benefits:
- Improved performance. Numerous studies have shown an overall improvement in player performance for athletes under chiropractic care. Injuries tended to be less severe and recovery far less traumatic. It stands to reason that chiropractic care not only assists the recovery of injuries, but also helps prevent future catastrophic damage.
“If you align the skeletal system well, the articulation of the joint appears to perform more properly; the muscles appear more flexible, strong and free of scar tissues and restrictions. These improved findings help athletes perform any sport at a higher level. When the body is well taken care of, the skill level appears to be enhanced.”2
– Dr. Martin Camara, DC for the South East Asian Games
- An increase in capillary counts. A study of baseball players published in 1997 noted an increase in capillary counts for players who received upper cervical chiropractic adjustments for 14 weeks. The researchers noted measurable positive increases “in regard to physical strength [and] tests of athletic ability, such as the long jump and microcirculation.”
- Improved reaction time, range of motion and recovery time. High-impact sports—including football, wrestling and NASCAR—involve excessive g-force and exert a notable amount of strain on the spine. The result is often misaligned vertebrae. Nerve transmissions from the spinal cord can be disrupted, resulting in a limited range of motion, slower reaction time, headaches, painful inflammation and slowed recovery times. Athletes under regular chiropractic care have seen a noteworthy reduction in such unwanted deteriorations, reporting improvements in their reaction and recovery times and range of motion.
“We put a great deal of stress on our bodies, so chiropractic is very helpful.”
-Mindy Mylrea, National and World Champion in Aerobics
Promoting a Long, Accomplished Career
One of the most notable benefits and primary goals of chiropractic care is injury prevention. As a professional athlete, one of your major concerns is not allowing an injury to slow you down. Your sport depends on staying fit, remaining active and ensuring injuries don’t end your athletic lifestyle or career prematurely.
The benefits of chiropractic care are undeniable. Athletes staffing and following the instructions of a professional chiropractor gain a competitive edge through injury reduction, increased speed of healing and an improvement in overall performance.
Grab our free report entitled, “Are You Heading Towards a Foot, Ankle or Knee Injury that Will Slow You Down? Learn How to Prevent It.” You can take advantage of this free offer to learn more about how to improve yourself in your sport.