Injury prevention and sports performance – Sydney chiropractor Andrew Richards discusses
Seeing your chiropractor is well known for its benefits treating spinal pain and injury. What is not as well known is that chiropractors receive extensive training in peripheral orthopaedics (all the other joints of the body other than the spine) and exercise based rehabilitation giving us a global scope to manage athletes in terms of injury prevention and sports performance.
There is only so hard one can train. Only so much time and energy you can devote to sweating it out. Most athletes know how to push themselves but not so many have a sensible approach to injury prevention and performance enhancement. The most common methods tend to focus on nutrition, largely thanks to the massive marketing efforts made by various supplement manufacturers. Sports drinks, protein supplements, various recovery formulas and anti-oxidants are all the rage. They all promise to give you that edge to get what you want. It is not hard to spend hundreds of dollars per month on any range of these products.
Seeing your chiropractor for maintenance is akin to an insurance policy
Unfortunately using chiropractic to deal with things like joint mis-alignment and stiffness, postural and muscular imbalances and nervous system dysfunction usually only comes to mind for most when an injury stops them in their tracks. The real problem is that even if you are not injured per se, most of us (athletic or not) are compensating for these types of issues all the time. What this means is that your body is wasting vital energy working around various problems rather than on the intended task at hand. Worst of all is that in the absence of obvious injury you don’t even know this is going on. It’s a bit like a car that is still moving along, no warning lights flashing but with a tyre that is losing pressure. While this is happening you are using way more petrol than need be, causing excessive wear and tear and if the problem is not tended to in the early stages, heading towards a much more serious issue than just having to deal with a flat tyre.
At Better Health our chiropractors manage many clients, some athletes some not, for the purposes of injury prevention and performance enhancement. Chiropractic maintenance is akin to an insurance policy protecting the investment our clients have made in time, effort and money over many months and even years getting ready for the big event.
Chiropractic allows you to function at 100% of your potential
I have seen so many athletes come and go throughout my own time spent racing triathlon and cycling and the motto that always comes to mind when someone has that big win is, “He who stays injury free the longest wins”. By winning I don’t just mean being number one on the podium either. Not everyone is destined for the professional sports arena. I mean having that great day that you have prepared for, knowing you have gotten the best out of yourself and had nothing holding you back. Actually isn’t that the way we should be living every day, in the knowledge that we are operating at 100% of our potential?
Isn’t it time you considered the benefits of a operating at 100% of your potential?
Yours in Better Health
Dr Andrew Richards (Principal Chiropractor)
